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collected from the Admiralty.
    He turned to his post journal, and entered the departure of the Royal Navy, not failing to include the commodore’s threat to press a man, the factor himself if necessary. Then he added a final sentence to his entry:
    â€œHave decided to conduct intensive search for the deserter, Skye, apparently a man of criminal nature. Will direct that the tribes be notified, a reward posted, and my brigades and posts informed as fast as feasible.”
    He set down his quill pen. A favor to the Crown would not hurt HBC. And cleaning a criminal out of his district would be desirable. If the man survived, he would eventually show up. All this he would discuss further in a letter to George Simpson, governor of Hudson’s Bay, up at York Factory headquarters.
    He spent the next hour penning identical messages, instructing his factors to be on the lookout for a deserting seaman named Skye, stocky, big-nosed, powerfully built, probably in seaman’s attire. If possible, they were to capture the man alive. The man would be tried, perhaps in London. They were also to post a five-pound reward and offer it to any tribe that brought Skye in alive—definitely alive and well. There would be no reward for a dead man. John McLoughlin did not intend to encourage the killing of a white man, or to give such a license to the various tribes that HBC traded with. He penned an additional letter to his gifted brigade leader in the Snake country, Peter Skene Ogden, saying much the same thing.
    He summoned two of his senior French Canadian engagés, Pierre Trintignon and Antoine Marie Le Duc, to his office and addressed them in his fluent French, the tongue of his mother. “I have decided to catch that deserter if possible,” he said. “Which means sending expresses to the posts where the brute’s likely to show up. Antoine, I suspect that Skye’s heading up the Columbia—his other choice is Mexico—and you’ll have the more urgent task. Take these expresses to Nez Perces House and Flathead House, and look for Ogden south of the Snake, delivering this express to him en route.
    â€œPierre, you take this express to Spokane House and continue onward to York Factory with an express for Simpson. You’ll each take a mount and remount, and draw whatever provisions you need. The sooner the better.”
    â€œAh, oui! And what does this Skye look like that the lord commodore wants so badly?” asked Le Duc.
    â€œPriestley was rather vague. Odd how some men don’t see what’s before their eyes. Look for a man of powerful build, medium height, with a formidable nose—probably in seaman’s clothing.”
    â€œAh, le nez formidable! Such a man will identify himself without a word.”
    â€œThis nose, I gather, rivals or exceeds my own nose,” McLoughlin said, “and that makes it a nose unlike any other you have ever examined.”
    â€œIt is so. I shall study le nez. ”
    â€œAll right, then. If you run into Skye, bring him in. He probably isn’t armed. He may be starving unless he’s a canny woodsman. I want him alive. He’ll have his trial, but I also want his story.”
    â€œThis Skye, he makes the trouble, oui? ”
    â€œIf Priestley is to be believed, yes.”
    â€œBut you don’t believe the commodore.”
    McLoughlin stared out the wavery glass window, one of the few glass windows in his post—or all the far west. “The commodore is a faithful officer of the Crown, but he sees commoners through the lens of his class. Skye is probably just as bad as Priestley makes him out. But I reserve judgment. I did learn that Skye was pressed into service as a youth and fought it. When you pull a man off the streets and make him the Crown’s sailor, the man has a grievance.” He smiled wryly. “Some men regard their lives as their own. It’s a novel thought to feudal lords, even