The two first met in June 1822, at a company store on Mackinac Island, part of a trading post owned by the American Fur Company. St. Martin was a French Canadian voyageur--an indentured trapper--hauling pelts by canoe and on foot through the woodsy landscape of the Michigan Territory. St. Martin retained little memory of the pair's historic meeting, lying, as he was, barely conscious on the floor. Someone's gun had discharged accidently, spraying a load of duck shot into St. Martin's side, and Beaumont, the army surgeon assigned to the nearby garrison, had been called down to help.