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Title: The Fur Bringers
       A Story of the Canadian Northwest

Author: Hulbert Footner

Release Date: July 13, 2005 [EBook #16289]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FUR BRINGERS ***




Produced by Al Haines










THE FUR BRINGERS


A STORY OF THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST




by

HULBERT FOOTNER



Author of "Jack Chanty," "Thieves Wit," "A Substitute Millionaire," etc.







NEW YORK

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY


1920




Copyright, 1920, by

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY


All Rights Reserved







Printed in the U.S.A.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

       I  JUNE FEVER
      II  FORT ENTERPRISE
     III  COLINA
      IV  THE MEETING
       V  AN INVITATION TO DINE
      VI  THE DINNER
     VII  TWO INTERVIEWS
    VIII  IN AMBROSE'S CAMP
      IX  LOVERS
       X  ANOTHER VISITOR
      XI  ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND FAMILY
     XII  GATHERING SHADOWS
    XIII  THE QUARREL
     XIV  SIMON GRAMPIERRE
      XV  THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
     XVI  COLINA COMMANDS
    XVII  THE STAFF OF LIFE
   XVIII  A BLOODLESS CAPTURE
     XIX  WOMAN'S WEAPONS
      XX  UNDERCURRENTS
     XXI  THE SUBTLETY OF GORDON STRANGE
    XXII  THE "TEA DANCE"
   XXIII  FIRE AND RAPINE
    XXIV  COLINA RELENTS
     XXV  ACCUSED
    XXVI  CONVICTED
   XXVII  A CHANGE OF JAILERS
  XXVIII  A GLEAM OF HOPE
    XXIX  NESIS
     XXX  FREE
    XXXI  THE ALARM
   XXXII  THE TRAP
  XXXIII  THE TEST
   XXXIV  ANOTHER CHANGE OF JAILERS
    XXXV  THE JAIL VISITOR
   XXXVI  COLINA'S ENTERPRISE
  XXXVII  MARTA
 XXXVIII  THE FINDING OF NESIS
   XXXIX  THE TRIAL
      XL  AM UNEXPECTED WITNESS
     XLI  FROM DUMB LIPS
    XLII  THE AVENGING OF NESIS
   XLIII  NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS




THE FUR BRINGERS


CHAPTER I.

JUNE FEVER.

The firm of Minot & Doane sat on the doorsill of its store on Lake
Miwasa smoking its after-supper pipes.

It was seven o'clock of a brilliant day in June.  The westering sun
shone comfortably on the world, and a soft breeze kept the mosquitoes
at bay.

Moreover, the tobacco was of the best the store afforded; yet there was
no peace between the two.  They bickered like schoolboys kept indoors.

"How many link-skins in the bale you made up today?" asked Peter Minot.

"Three-seventy-two," his young partner answered in a surly tone that
was in itself a provocation.

"I made it three-seventy-three," said Peter curtly.

"What's the difference?" demanded Ambrose Doane.

"Seven dollars," said Peter dryly.

"Well, you can claim the extra one, can't you," snarled Ambrose, "and
make an allowance if it's found short?"

"That's not the way I like to do business!"

"Too bad about you!"

The older man frowned darkly, clamped his teeth upon his pipe, and held
his tongue.

His silence was an additional aggravation to the other.  "What do you
want me to do," he burst out with an amount of passion absurdly
disproportionate to the matter at issue, "cut it open and count it over
and bale it up again?"

"To blazes with it!" said Peter.  "I want you to keep your temper!"

"I'm sick of this!" cried Ambrose with the wilful abandon of one
hopelessly in the wrong.  "You're at me from morning till night!
Nothing I do is right.  Why can't you leave me alone?"

Peter took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at his young partner in
astonishment.  His face turned a dull brick color and his blue eyes
snapped.

He spoke in a voice of portentous softness: "Who the hell do you think
you are?  A little gorramighty?  To make a mistake is natural; to fly
into a temper when it is discovered is childish.  What's the matter
with you these past ten days, anyway?  A man can't look at you but you
begin to bark and froth.  You'd best go off by yourself a while and eat
grass to cool your blood!"

Having delivered himself, Peter pulled deeply at his pipe and gazed
across the lake with a scowl of honest resentment.

It was a long speech to come from Peter, and it went unexpectedly to
the point.  Ambrose was silenced.  For a long time neither spoke.

Little by little the angry red faded out of Peter's cheeks and neck,
and his forehead smoothed itself.  Stealing a glance at young Ambrose,
the blue eyes began to twinkle.

"Say!" he said suddenly.

Ambrose twisted petulantly and muttered in his throat.

"Stick out your tongue!" commanded Peter.

Ambrose stared at him in angry stupefaction.  "What the deuce--"

"No," said Peter, "you're not sick.  Your eyeballs is as clean as new
milk; your skin is as pink as a spanked baby.  No, you're not sick, so
to speak!"

There was another silence, Ambrose squirming a little and blushing
under Peter's calm, speculative gaze.

"Have you anything against me?" Peter finally inquired.  "If you have,
out with it!"

The young man shook his head unhappily.

"Forget it then!" cried Peter with a scornful, kindly grin.  "You
ornery worthless Slavi, you!  You Shushwap!  You Siwash!  Change your
face or you'll give the dog distemper!"

Ambrose laughed sheepishly and stole a glance at his partner.  There
was pain in his bold eyes, and the wish to bare it to his friend as to
a surgeon; but he dreaded Peter's laughter.

There was another long silence.  The atmosphere was now much clearer.

Peter, having come to a conclusion, removed his pipe and spoke again:
"I know what's the matter with you."

"What?" muttered Ambrose.

"You've got the June fever."

Ambrose made no comment.

"I mind it when I was your age," Peter continued; "when the ice goes
out of the lake and the poplar-trees hang out their little earrings,
that's when a man catches it--when Molly Cottontail puts on her brown
jacket and Skinny Weasel a yellow one.  The south wind brings the
microbe along with it, and it multiplies in the warm earth.  Gee!  It
makes even an old feller like me poetical.  After six months of winter
it's hell!"

Still Ambrose kept his eyes down and said nothing.

Peter smoked on, and his eyes became reminiscent.  "I mind it well," he
continued, "the second spring I was in the country.  The first year I
didn't notice it so much, but the second year--when the warm weather
come I was like a wild man.  I saw red!  I wanted to fight every man I
laid eyes on.  I felt like I would go clean off my head if I couldn't
smash something!"

Ambrose broke in on Peter's reminiscences.  He seemed scarcely to have
heard.

"I don't know what's the matter with me!" he cried bitterly.  "I can't
seem to settle down to anything lately.  I've got no use for myself at
all.  I get so cranky, anybody that speaks to me I want to punch them.
God knows I need company, too.  It is certainly square of you to put up
with me the way you do.  I appreciate it--"

"Aw, bosh!" muttered Peter.

"I've tried to work it off!" cried Ambrose.  "You know I've worked,
though I've generally made a mess of things because I can't keep my
mind on anything.  My head goes round like a top.  Half the time I'm in
a daze.  I feel as if I was going crazy.  I don't know what is the
matter with me!"

"Twenty-five years old," murmured Peter; "in the pink of condition!
I'm telling you what's the matter with you.  It's a plain case of June
fever.  Ask any of the fellows up here."

"What am I going to do?" said Ambrose.  "As it is, I work till I'm
ready to drop."

"I mind when I had it," said Peter, "I came to a camp of French
half-breeds on Musquasepi, and I saw Eva Lajeunesse for the first time.
It was like a blow between the eyes.  You do not know what she looked
like then.  I didn't think about it this way or that; I just up and
married her.  I was glad to get her!

"Man to man I'll not deny I ain't been sorry sometimes," he went on;
"who ain't, sometimes?  But, on the whole, after all these years, how
could I have done any better?  She's good enough for me.  A man worries
about his children sometimes; but I guess if they go straight there's a
place for them, though they are dusky.  Eva, she has her bad points,
but she's been real good to me.  How can I be but grateful!"

This was a rare and unusual confidence for Peter to offer his young
partner.  Ambrose, flattered and embarrassed, did not know what to say,
and said nothing.

He was right, for if he had referred to it, Peter would have been
obliged to turn it into a joke.  As it was, they smoked on in
understanding silence.  Finally Peter went on:

"You see, I gave right in.  You're different; you want to fight the
thing.  Blest if I know what to tell you."

"Eva and I don't get on very well," said Ambrose shamefacedly.  "She
doesn't like me around the house.  But I respect her.  You know that."

"Sure," said Peter.

"I couldn't do it, Peter," Ambrose went on after a while with seeming
irrelevance--howsoever Peter understood.  "God knows it's not because I
think myself any better than anybody else, or because I think a man
does for himself by marrying a--by marrying up here.  But I just
couldn't do it, that's all."

"No offense," said Peter.  "Every man must chop his own trail.  I won't
say but what you're right.  But what are you going to do?  A man can't
live and die alone."

"I don't know," said Ambrose.

"Tell you what," said Peter; "you take the furs out on the steamboat."

"I won't," said Ambrose quickly.  "I went out last year.  It's your
turn."

"But I'm contented here," said Peter.

Ambrose shook his head.  "It wouldn't do me any real good," he said.
"It makes it worse after.  It did last year.  I couldn't bring a white
wife up here."

"Well, sir, it's a problem," said Peter with a weighty shake of the
head.

This serious, sentimental kind of talk was a strain on both partners.
Ambrose made haste to drop the subject.

"I believe I'll start the new warehouse to-morrow," he said.  "I like
to work with logs.  First, I must measure the ground and make a working
plan."

Peter was not sorry to be diverted.  "Hadn't we better get lumber from
the 'Company' mill?" he suggested.  "Looks like up to date somehow."

"A board shack looks rotten in the woods?" said Ambrose.

"You're so gol-durn artistic," said Peter quizzically.

Minot & Doane's store was a long log shack with a sod roof sprouting a
fine crop of weeds.  The original shack had been added to on one side,
then on the other.  There was a pleasing diversity of outline in the
main building and its wings.  The whole crouched low on the ground as
though for warmth.

Three crooked little windows and three doors so low that a short man
had to duck his head under the lintels, faced the lake.  The middle
door gave ingress to the store proper; the door on the right was the
entrance to Peter Minot's household quarters; while that on the left
opened to a large room used variously for stores and bunks.

Farther to the left stood the little shack that housed Ambrose Doane in
bachelor solitude, and a few steps beyond, the long, low, log stable
for the use of the freighters in winter.

Seen from the lake the low, spreading buildings in the rough clearing
among gigantic pines were not unpleasing.  Rough as they were, they
fulfilled the first aim of all architecture; they were suitable to the
site.

The traveler by water landed on a stony beach, climbed a low bank and
followed a crooked path to the door of the store.  On either hand
potato and onion patches flourished among the stumps.

From the door-sill where the partners sat, the farther shore of the
lake could be seen merely as a delicate line of tree tops poised in the
air.

Off to the right their own shore made out in a shallow, sweeping curve,
ending half a mile away in a bold hill-point where the Company's post
of Fort Moultrie had stood for two hundred years commanding the western
end of the lake and its outlet, Great Buffalo River.

To one who should compare the outward aspects of the two
establishments, Minot & Doane's offered a ludicrous contrast to the
imposing white buildings of Fort Moultrie, arranged military-wise on
the grassy promontory; nevertheless, as is not infrequently the case
elsewhere, the humbler store did the larger trade.

The coming of Peter Minot ten years before had worked a kind of
revolution in the country.  He had brought war into the very stronghold
of the arrogant fur monopoly, and had succeeded in establishing himself
next door.  The results were far-reaching.  Formerly the Indian sat
humbly on the step with his furs until the trader was pleased to open
his door; whereas now when the Indian landed, the trader ran down the
hill with outstretched hand.

Far and wide Minot & Doane were known as the "free-traders"; and some
of their customers journeyed for three hundred miles to trade in the
little log store.

The partners were roused by a shrill hail from up the shore.  Grateful
for the interruption, they hastened to the edge of the bank.

Summer is the dull season in the fur trade.  Most of the firm's
customers were "pitching off" among the hills, and visitors were rare
enough to be notable.

"Poly Goussard," said Ambrose after an instant's examination of the
dug-out nosing alongshore.  Ambrose's keenness of vision was already
known in a land of keen-eyed men.

"Taking his woman to see her folks," added Peter.

Soon the long, slender canoe grounded on the stones below them.  It
contained in addition to all the worldly goods of the family, a swarthy
French half-breed, his Cree wife and three coppery infants in pink
calico sunbonnets.

The man climbing over his family indiscriminately, landed and came up
the bank with outstretched hand.  The woman and children remained
sitting like statues in their narrow craft, staring unwinkingly at the
white men.

Mrs. Goussard as a full-blooded Cree was considerably below Peter's
half-breed wife in the social scale, and she knew better than to make a
call uninvited.  Even in the north, woman, the conservator, maintains
the distinctions.

"Stay all night," urged Peter when formal greetings had been exchanged.
"Bring your family ashore."

Poly Goussard shook his head.  Poly had a chest like a barrel, a face
the color of Baldwin apples and a pair of rolling, gleaming, sloe-black
eyes.  His head of curly black hair was famous; some one had called him
the "Newfoundland dog."

"I promise my wife I sleep wit' her folks to-night," he said.  "It is
ten miles yet.  I jus' come ashore for a little talk."

"Fine!" said Peter, "we're spoiling for news.  Come on up to the store
and have a cigar."

Seven hundred miles from the railway a cigar is something of a
phenomenon.  Poly Goussard displayed twenty dazzling teeth and made
haste to follow.  The three men entered the store and found seats on
boxes and bales.




CHAPTER II.

FORT ENTERPRISE.

"Me, I work all winter at Fort Enterprise," said Poly.

"So I heard," said Peter.  "You've had quite a trip."

The rosy half-breed shrugged.  "It is easy.  Jus' floatin' down the
Spirit River six days."

"What kind of a job did they give you at Enterprise?" asked Peter.

"I drove a team, me, haulin' logs to the saw-mill," said Poly.  "There
is plentee work at Fort Enterprise."

"The Company's most profitable post," remarked Peter to Ambrose.  "They
have everything their own way there."  The look which accompanied this
suggested to Ambrose it would be a good place for Minot & Doane to
start a branch.

"What did you think of the place, Poly?" asked Ambrose.

The half-breed flung up his hands and dramatically rolled his eyes.

"_Wa_!  _Wa_!  _Towasasuak_!  It is a gran' place!  Jus' lak outside!
Trader him live in great big house all make of smooth boards and paint'
yellow and red lak the sun!  Never I see before such a tall house, and
so many rooms inside full of fine chairs and tables so smoot' and shiny.

"He is so reech he put blankets on the floor to walk on, w'at you call
carrpitt.  Every day he has a white cloth on the table, and a little
one to wipe his hands!  I have seen it!  And silver dishes!"

"There is style for you!" said Peter, with a whimsical roll of his eye
in Ambrose's direction.

"There is moch farming by the river at Fort Enterprise," Poly went on;
"and plaintee grain grow.  There is a mill to grind flour.  Steam mak'
it go lak the steamboat.  They eat eggs and butter at Fort Enterprise,
and think not'ing of it.  Christmas I have turkey and cranberry sauce.
I am going back, me."

"They say the trader John Gaviller is a hard man," suggested Peter.

Poly shrugged elaborately.  "Maybe.  He owe me not'ing.  Me, I would
not farm for him nor trade my fur at his store.  Those people are his
slaves.  But he pay a strong man good wages.  I will tak' his wages and
snap my fingers!

"But wait!" cried Poly with a sparkling eye.  "The 'mos' won'erful
thing I see at Fort Enterprise--Wa!--the laktrek light!  Her shine in
little bottles lak pop, but not so big.  John Gaviller, him clap his
hands, so! and Wa! she shine!

"Indians, him t'ink it is magic.  But I am no fool.  I know John
Gaviller make the laktrek in an engine in the mill.  Me, I have seen
that engine.  I see blue fire inside lak falling stars.

"Gaviller send the laktrek to the store inside a wire.  He send some to
his house too.  They said it cook the dinner, but I think that is a
lie.  If a man touch that wire they say he will jomp to the roof!  Me?
I did not try it."

Peter chuckled.  "Good man!" he said.

The wonders of Fort Enterprise were not new to Ambrose.  Other
travelers the preceding summer had brought the same tale.  With the air
that politeness demanded he only half listened, and pursued his own
thoughts.

On the other hand Peter, who delighted in his humble friends, drew out
Poly fully.  The half-breed told about the bringing in of the winter's
catch of fur; of the launching of the great steamboat for the summer
season, and many other things.

"Enterprise is sure a wonderful place!" said Peter encouragingly.

"There is something else," said Poly proudly.  "At Fort Enterprise
there is a white girl!"

The simple sentence had the effect of the ringing of an alarm going
inside the dreamy Ambrose.  He drew a careful mask over his face, and
leaned farther into the shadow.

"So!" said Peter with a glance in the direction of his young partner.
"That is news!  Who is she?"

"Colina Gaviller, the trader's daughter," said Poly.

"Is she real white?" asked Peter cautiously.

"White as raspberry flowers!" asseverated Poly with extravagant
gestures; "white as clouds in the summer! white as sugar!  Her hair is
lak golden-rod; her eyes blue lak the lake when the wind blows over it
in the morning!"

Peter glanced again at his partner, but Ambrose was farthest from the
window, and there was nothing to be read in his face.

"Sure," said Peter; "but was her mother a white woman ?"

"They say so," said Poly.  "Her long tam dead."

"When did the girl come?" asked Peter.

"Las' fall before the freeze-up," said Poly.  "She come down the Spirit
River from the Crossing on a raf'.  Michel Trudeau and his wife, they
bring her.  Her fat'er he not know she comin'.  Her fat'er want her
live outside and be a lady.  She say 'no!'  She say ladies mak' her
sick.'  Michel tell me she say that.

"She want always to ride and paddle a canoe and hunt.  Michel say she
is more brave as a man!  John Gaviller say she got go out again this
summer.  She say 'no!'  She is not afraid of him.  Me, I t'ink she lak
to be the only white girl in the country, lak a queen."

"How old is she?" inquired Peter.

"Twenty years, Michel say," answered Poly.  "Ah! she is beautiful!" he
went on.  "She walk the groun' as sof' and proud and pretty as fine
yong horse!  She sit her horse like a flower on its stem.  Me and her
good frens too.  She say she lak me for cause I am simple.  Often in
the winter she ride out wit' my team and hunt in the bush while I am
load up."

"What did Eelip say to that?" Peter inquired facetiously.  Eelip was
Poly's wife.

"Eelip?" queried Poly, surprised.  "Colina is the trader's daughter,"
he carefully explained.  "She live in the big house.  I would cut off
my hand to serve her."

"I suppose Miss Colina has plenty of suitors?" said Peter.

Ambrose hung with suspended breath on the reply.

Poly shook his curly pate.  "Who is there for her?" he demanded.
"Macfarlane the policeman is too fat; the doctor is too old, his hair
is white; the parson is a little, scary man.  All are afraid of her;
her proud eye mak' a man feel weak inside.  There are no ot'er white
men there.  She is a woman.  She mus' have a master.  There is no man
in the country strong enough for that!"

There was a brief silence in the cabin while Poly relighted his cigar.
Ambrose had given no sign of being affected by Poly's tale beyond a
slight quivering of the nostrils.  But Peter watching him slyly, saw
him raise his lids for a moment and saw his dark eyes glowing like
coals in a pit.  Peter chuckled inwardly, and said:

"Tell us some more about her."

Ambrose's heart warmed gratefully toward his partner.  He thirsted for
more like a desert traveler for water, but he dared not speak for fear
of what he might betray.

"I will tell you 'ow she save Michel Trudeau's life," said Poly,
nothing loath, "I am the first to come down the river this summer or
you would hear it before.  Many times Michel is tell me this story.
Never I heard such a story before.  A woman to save a man!

"Wa!  Every Saturday night Michel tell it at the store.  And John
Gaviller give him two dollars of tobacco, the best.  I guess Michel is
glad the trader's daughter save him.  Old man proud, lak he is save
Michel himself!"

Poly Goussard, having smoked the cigar to within half an inch of his
lips, regretfully threw the half inch out the door.  He paused, and
coughed suggestively.  A second cigar being forthcoming, he took the
time to light it with tenderest care.  Meanwhile, Ambrose kicked the
bale on which he sat with an impatient heel.

"It was the Tuesday after Easter," Poly finally began.  "It was when
the men went out to visit their traps again after big time at the fort.
There was moch frash snow fall, and heavy going for the dogs.  Colina
Gaviller she moch friends with Michel Trudeau for because he was bring
her in on his raf las' fall.

"Often she go with him lak she go with me.  Michel carry her up on his
sledge, and she hunt aroun' while he visit his traps.  Michel trap up
on the bench three mile from the fort.  He not get much fur so near,
but live home in a warm house, and work for day's wages for John
Gaviller."

Poly paragraphed his story with luxurious puffs at the cigar and
careful attention to keep it burning evenly.

"So on Tuesday after Easter they go out toget'er.  Colina Gaviller ride
on the sledge and Michel he break trail ahead.  Come to the bench,
leave the dogs in a shelter Michel build in a poplar bluff.  Michel go
to see his traps, and Colina walk away on her snowshoes wit' her little
gun.

"Michel not ver' good lok that day.  In his first trap find fool-hen
catch herself.  He is mad.  Second trap is little cross-fox; third trap
nothin' 'tall!

"Come to fourth trap, wa! see somesing black on the snow!  Wa!  Wa!
Him heart jomp up!  Think him got black fox sure!  But no!  It is too
big.  Come close and look.  What is he catch you think?  It is a black
bear!

"Everybody know some tam a bear wake up too soon in winter and come out
of his hole and roll aroun' lak he was drunk.  He can't find somesing
to eat nowhere, and don' know what to do!

"This bear him catch his paw in Michel's little fox trap.  It was chain
to a little tree.  Bear too weak to pull his paw out or break the
chain.  He lie down lak dead.

"Michel him ver' mad.  Him think got no lok at all after Easter.  For
'cause that bear is poor as a bird out of the egg.  Michel mak' a noise
to wake him up.  But always he lie still lak dead.  Michel think all
right.

"Bam-by he lean over with his knife.  Wa!  Bear jomp up lak he was burn
wit' fire!  Little chain break and before Michel can tak a breath, bear
fetch him a crack with the steel trap acrost his head!

"Wa!  Wa!  Michel's forehead is bus' open from here to here lak that!
Michel drop his knife in the snow.  Him get ver' sick.  Warm blood run
all down his eyes, and he can't see not'ing no more.

"Bear grab Michel round his body and squeeze him pretty near till his
eyes jomp out.  Michel say a little prayer then.  Him say him awful
sorry he ain't confessed this year.

"But always he fight that bear and fight some more.  Always he is try
get his hands aroun' that hairy throat.  Bear tear Michel's shoulder
with his teeth.  Michel feel the hot blood run down inside his shirt
and get cold.

"Michel, him always thinkin' Colina is not far, but he will not call to
her.  She is only a girl him say; she can't do not'ing to a crazy bear.
Bear hurt her too, maybe, and John Gaviller is mad for that.

"So Michel he jus' fight.  He is ver' tire' now.  And always they
stamping and tumbling and rolling in the snow, and big red spots drop
all aroun'.

"Colina, she tell me the end of it.  Colina say she is walkin' sof' in
the poplar bush looking sharp and all tam listen for game.  All is ver'
quiet in the bush.

"Bam-by she hear a fonny little noise way off.  Twigs crackling, and
somesing bumping and tromping in the snow.  Colina think it is big game
and go quick.  Some tam she stop and listen.  Bam-by she hear fonny
snarling and grunting.  She know there is a fight and she is a little
scare.  But she go more fas'.

"Wa!  Wa!  What a sight she sec there!  Poor Michel he pretty near
done.  She can't see his face no more for blood.  She think he got no
face now.  Michel he see her come, and say to her loud as he can: 'Go
way!  Go way!  You get hurt and John Gaviller give me hell!'

"Colina say not know what to do.  Them two turn around so fas' she
'fraid to shoot.  She run aroun' and aroun' them always looking for a
chance.  Bam-by she see the handle of Michel's knife in a hole in the
snow.  She grab it up.  She watch her chance.  Woof!  She stick that
bear between the neck and the shoulder!

"That is all!" said Poly.  "Bear, him grunt and fall down.  Stick his
snoot in the snow.  Michel crawl away.  Colina is fall down too and cry
lak a baby.  For a little while all three are dead!

"Then Colina wash his wounds with clean snow, and tear up her petticoat
for to mak' bandage.  She put him on his snowshoes and drag him back
where the dogs is.  She bring him quick to the fort.  In one week
Michel is go to his traps same as ever.  That is the story!"

"By God, there's a woman!" cried Peter.  Ambrose said nothing.

When Poly Goussard reembarked in his dug-out a heavy constraint fell
upon the two partners.

Ambrose dreaded to hear Peter call attention to the remarkable
coincidence of Poly's story following so close upon their own talk
together.  He suspected that Peter would want to sit up and thrash the
matter to conclusions.

At the bare idea of talking about it Ambrose felt as helpless and
sullen as a convicted felon.

In this he underrated Peter's perceptions.  Peter had lived in the
woods for many years.  He intuitively apprehended something of the
confusion in the younger man's mind, and he was only anxious to let
Ambrose understand that it was not necessary to say anything one way or
the other.

But he overdid it a little, and when Ambrose saw that Peter was "on to
him," as he would have said, he became still more hang-dog and perverse.

They parted at the door of the store.  Peter went off to his family,
while Ambrose closed the door of his own little shack behind him, with
a long breath of relief.

Feeling as he did, it was torture to be obliged to support the gaze of
another's eye, however kindly.  So urgent was his need to be alone that
he even turned his back on his dog.  For a long time the poor beast
softly scratched and whined at the closed door unheeded.

Ambrose was busy inside.  As it began to grow dark he lit his lamp and
carefully pinned a heavy shirt inside his window in lieu of a blind.

Since Peter and his family went to bed with the sun it would be hard to
say whom he feared might spy on him.  One listening at the door might
well have wondered what the activity inside portended.

Later Ambrose opened the door and, putting the dog in, proceeded
cautiously to the store.  Satisfying himself from the sounds that
issued through the connecting door that Peter and his family slept
deeply, he lit a candle and quietly robbed the stock of what he
required.  Then he wrote a note and pinned it beside the store door.

Carrying the bundles back to his cabin, he packed a grub-box and bore
it down to the water.

His preparations completed, he went to his shack to bid good-by to his
four-footed pal.  Job, instantly, comprehending that he was to be left
behind, whimpered and nozzled so piteously that Ambrose's heart began
to fail.

"I can't take you, old fel'!" he explained.  "You're such a
common-looking mutt.  Of course, I know you're white clear through--but
a lady would laugh at you until she knew you!"

Even as he said it his heart accused him of disloyalty.  He suddenly
changed his mind.

"Come on!" he whispered gruffly.  "We'll chance our luck together.  If
you open your head I'll brain you!  Wait here a minute."

Job understood perfectly.  He crept down to the lake shore at his
master's feet as quiet as a ghost.  Seeing the loaded boat he hopped
delightedly into his accustomed place in the bow.

During June it never becomes wholly dark in the latitude of Lake
Miwasa.  An exquisite dim twilight brooded over the wide water and the
pine-walled shore.  The stars sparkled faintly in an oxidized silver
sea.  There was no wind now, but the pines breathed like warm-blooded
creatures.

Ambrose's breast hummed like a violin to the bow of night.  The poetic
feeling was there, though the expression was prosaic.

"By George, this is fine!" he murmured.

Job's curly tail thumped the gunwale in answer.

"I'm glad I brought you, old fel'," said Ambrose.  "I expect I'd go
clean off my head if didn't have any one to talk to!"

Job beat a tattoo on the side of the boat and wriggled and whined in
his anxiety to reach his master.

"Steady there!" said Ambrose.

Presently he went on: "Three hundred miles!  Six days for Poly to come
with the current; nine days to go back!  Fifteen days at the best!
Anything might happen in that time. . . .  Poly said no danger from any
of the men there.  But some one might come down the river! . . .  If
wishing could bring an aeroplane up north!"

After a silence: "I wish I could get my best suit pressed! . . .  It's
two years old, anyway.  And she's just come in; she knows the
styles. . . .  Lord, I'll look like a regular roughneck!"


Next morning when Peter Minot threw open the door of the store he found
the note pinned to the door-frame.  It was brief and to the point:


DEAR PETE:

You said I ought to go by myself till I felt better.  So I'm off.
Don't expect me till you see me.  Charge me with 50 lbs. flour, 18 lbs.
bacon, 20 lbs. rice, 10 lbs.  sugar, 5 lbs. prunes, 1/2 lb. tea, 1/2
lb. baking powder, and bag of salt.  Please take care of my dog.  So
long!                          A. D.

P. S.--I'm taking the dog.


Peter, like all men slow to anger, lost his temper with startling
effect.  Tearing the note off the door and grinding it under foot, he
cursed the runaway from a full heart.

Eva, hearing, hastily called the children indoors, and thrusting them
behind her peeped into the store.  Peter, purple in the face, was
wildly brandishing his arms.

Eva closed the door very softly and gave the children bread and
molasses to keep them quiet.  Meanwhile the storm continued to rage.

"The young fool!  To run off without a word!  I'd have let him go
gladly if he'd said anything--and given him a good man!  But to go
alone!  He'll break an arm and die in the bush!  And to leave me like
this with the year's outfit due next week!

"I'll not see him again until cold weather--if I ever see him!  Fifty
pounds of flour--with his appetite!  He'll starve to death if he
doesn't drown himself first!  He'll never get to Enterprise!  Oh, the
consummate young ass!  Damn Poly Goussard and his romantic stories!"




CHAPTER III.

COLINA.

John Gaviller and Colina were at breakfast in the big clap-boarded
villa at Fort Enterprise.

They were a good-looking pair, and at heart not dissimilar, though it
must be taken into account that the same qualities manifest themselves
differently in a man of affairs and a romantic, irresponsible young
woman.

They were secretly proud of each other--and quarreled continually.
Colina, by virtue of her reckless honesty, frequently got the better of
her canny father.

"Well," he said, now with a gesture of surrender, "if you're determined
to stay here, all right--but you must live differently."

At the word "must" an ominous gleam shot from under Colina's lashes.

"What's the matter with my way of living?" she asked with deceitful
mildness.

"This tearing around the country on horseback," he said.  "Going off
all day hunting with this man and that--and spending the night in
native cabins.  As long as I considered you were here on a visit I said
nothing--"

"Oh, didn't you!" murmured Colina sarcastically.

"--But if you are going to make this country your home, you must
consider your reputation in the community just the same as anywhere
else--more, indeed; we live in a tiny little world here, where our
smallest actions are scrutinized and discussed."

He took a swallow of coffee.  Colina played with her food sulkily.

Her silence encouraged him to proceed: "Another thing," he said with a
deprecating smile, "comparatively speaking, I occupy an exalted
position now.  I am the head of all things, such as they are.  Great or
small this entails certain obligations on a man.  I have to study all
my words and acts.

"If you are going to stay here with me I shall expect you to assume
your share; to consider my interests, to support me; to play the game
as they say.  What I object to is your impulsiveness, your
outspokenness with the people.  Remember, everybody here is your
dependent.  It is always a mistake to be open and frank with
dependents.  They don't understand it, and if they do, they presume
upon it.

"Be guided by my experience; no one could justly accuse me of any lack
of affability or friendliness in dealing with the people here--but they
never know what I am thinking of!"

"Admirable!" murmured Colina, "but I'm not a directors' meeting!"

"Colina!" said her father indignantly.

"It's not fair for you to drag that in about my standing by you and
supporting you!" she went on warmly.  "You know I'll do that as long as
I live!  But I must be allowed to do it in my own way.  I'm an adult
and an individual.  I differ from you.  I've a right to differ from
you.  It is because these people are my inferiors that I can afford to
be perfectly natural with them.  As for their presuming on it, you
needn't fear!  I know how to take care of that!"

"A little more reserve," murmured her father.

Colina paused and looked at him levelly.  "Dad, what a fool you are
about me!" she said coolly.

"Colina!" he cried again, and pounded the table.

She met his indignant glance squarely.

"I mean it," she said.  "I'm your daughter, am I not?--and mother's?
You must know yourself by this time; you must have known mother--you
ought to understand me a little but you won't try--you're clever enough
in everything else!  You've made up an idea for yourself of what a
daughter ought to be, and you're always trying to make me fit it!"

Gaviller scarcely listened to this.  "I'll have to bring in a chaperon
for you!" he cried.

"Oh, Lord!" groaned Colina.  "Anything but that!  What do you want me
to do?"

"Merely to live like other girls," said Gaviller; "to observe the
proprieties."

"That's why I couldn't get along at school," muttered Colina gloomily.
"You might as well send me back."

"You're simply headstrong!" said her father severely.  "You won't try
to be different."

"Dad," said Colina suddenly, "what did you come north for in the first
place, thirty years ago?"

The question caught him a little off his guard.  "A natural love of
adventure, I suppose," he said carelessly.

"Perfectly natural!" said Colina.  "Was your father pleased?"

Gaviller began to see her drift.  "No!" he said testily.

"And when you went back for her," Colina persisted, "didn't my mother
run away north with you, against the wishes of her parents?"

"Your mother was a saint!" cried Gaviller indignantly.

"Certainly," said Colina coolly, "but not the psalm-singing kind.  What
do you expect of the child of such a couple?"

"Not another word!" cried Gaviller, banging the table--last refuge of
outraged fathers.

Colina was unimpressed.  "Now you're simply raising a dust to conceal
the issue," she said relentlessly.

Gaviller chewed his mustache in offended silence.

Colina did not spare him.  "Do you think you can make your child and
hers into a prim miss, to sit at home and work embroidery?" she
demanded.  "Upon my word, if I were a boy I believe you'd suggest
putting me in a bank!"

John Gaviller helped himself to another egg with great dignity and
removed the top.  "Don't be absurd, Colina," he said with a weary air.

It was a transparent assumption.  Colina saw that she had reduced him
utterly.  She smiled winningly.  "Dad, if you'd only let me be myself!
We could be such pals if you wouldn't try to play the heavy father!"

"Is it being yourself to act like a harum-scarum tomboy?" inquired
Gaviller sarcastically.

Colina laughed.  "Yes!" she said boldly.  "If that's what you want to
call it?  There's something in me," she went on seriously.  "I don't
know what it is--some wild strain; something that drives me headlong;
makes me see red when I am balked!  Maybe it is just too much physical
energy.

"Well, if you let me work it off it does no harm.  If I can ride all
day, or paddle or swim, or go hunting with Michel or one of the others;
and be interested in what I'm doing, and come home tired and sleep
without dreaming--why everything is all right.  But if you insist on
cooping me up!--well, I'm likely to turn out something worse than
harum-scarum, that's all!"

Gaviller flung up his arms.

"Really, you'll have to go back to your aunt," he said grimly.  "The
responsibility of looking after you is too great!"

Colina laughed out of sheer vexation.  "The silly ideas fathers have!"
she cried.  "Nobody can look after _me_, not you, not my aunt, nobody
but myself!  Why won't you understand that!  I don't know exactly what
dangers you fancy are threatening me.  If it is from men, be at ease!
I can put the fear of God into them!  It is the sweet and gentle girl
you would like to have that is in danger there!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to go back," said Gaviller.

Colina drew her beautiful straight brows together.  "You make me think
you simply want to get me off your hands," she said sullenly.

Gaviller shook his head.  "You know I love to have you with me," he
said simply.

"Then consider me a fixture!" said Colina serenely.  "This is my
country!" she went on enthusiastically.  "It suits me.  I like its
uglinesses and its hardships, too!  I hated it in the city.  Do you
know what they called me?--the wild Highlander!

"Up here everybody understands my wildness, and thinks none the worse
of me.  It was different in the city--you've always lived in the north,
you old innocent--you don't know!  Men, for instance, in society they
have a curious logic.  They seem to think if a girl is natural she must
be bad!  Sometimes they acted on that assumption--"

"What did I tell you!" cried her father.  "Men are the same everywhere!"

"Well," said Colina, smiling to herself, "they didn't get very far.
And no man ever tried it twice.  Up here--how different.  I don't have
to think of such things."

"I have to think of settling you in life," said Gaviller gloomily.
"There is no one for you up here."

"I'm not bothering my head about that," said Colina.  She went on with
a kind of splendid insolence: "Every man wants me.  I'll choose one
when I'm ready.  I can't see anything in men except as comrades.  The
decent ones are timid with women, and the bold ones are--well--rather
beastly.  I'm looking for a man who's brave and decent, too.  If
there's no such thing--"

She rose from the table.  Colina's was a body designed to fill a
riding-habit, and she wore one from morning till night.  She was as
tall as a man of middle height, and her tawny hair piled on top of her
head made her seem taller.

"Well?" said Gaviller.

"Oh, I'll choose the handsomest beast I can find," she said, laughing
over her shoulder and escaping from the room before he could answer.

John Gaviller finished his egg with a frown.  Colina had this trick of
breaking things off in the middle, and it irritated him.  He had an
orderly mind.




CHAPTER IV.

THE MEETING.

Colina groomed her own horse, whistling like a boy.  Saddling him, she
rode east along the trail by the river, with the fenced grain fields on
her right hand.

Beyond the fields she could gallop at will over the rolling, grassy
bottoms, among the patches of scrub and willow.

It was not an impressively beautiful scene--the river was half a mile
wide, broken by flat wooded islands overflowed at high water; the banks
were low, and at this season muddy.  But the sky was as blue as
Colina's eyes, and the prairie, quilted with wild flowers, basked in
the delicate radiance that only the northern sun can bestow.

On a horse Colina could not be actively unhappy, nevertheless she was
conscious of a certain dissatisfaction with life.  Not as a result of
the discussion with her father--she felt she had come off rather well
from that.

But it was warm, and she felt a touch of languor.  Fort Enterprise was
a little dull in early summer.  The fur season was over, and the flour
mill was closed; the Indians had gone to their summer camps; and the
steamboat had lately departed on her first trip up river, taking most
of the company employees in her crew.

There was nothing afoot just now but farming, and Colina was not much
interested in that.  In short, she was lonesome.  She rode idly with
long detours inland in search of nothing at all.

Loping over the grass and threading her way among the poplar saplings,
Colina proceeded farther than she had ever been in this direction since
summer set in.

She saw the painter's brush for the first time--that exquisite rose of
the prairies--and instantly dismounted to gather a bunch to thrust in
her belt.  The delicate, ashy pink of the flower matched the color in
her cheeks.

On her rides Colina was accustomed to dismount when she chose, and
Ginger, her sorrel gelding, would crop the grass contentedly until she
was ready to mount again.  To-day the spring must have been in his
blood, too.

When Colina went to him he tossed his head coquettishly, and trotting
away a few steps, turned and looked at her with a droll air.  Colina
called him in dulcet tones, and held out an inviting hand.

Ginger waywardly wagged his head and danced with his forefeet.

This was repeated several times--Colina's voice ever growing more
honeyed as the rose in her cheeks deepened.  The inevitable
happened--she lost her temper and stamped her foot; whereupon Ginger,
with lifted tail, ran around her like a circus horse.

Colina, alternately cajoling and commanding, pursued him bootlessly.
Fond as she was of exercise, she preferred having the horse use his
legs.  She sat down in the grass and cried a little out of sheer
impotence.

Ginger resumed his interrupted meal on the grass with insulting
unconcern.  Colina was twelve miles from home--and hungry.

Desperately casting her eyes around the horizon to discover some way
out of her dilemma, Colina perceived a thin spiral of smoke rising
above the edge of the river bank about a quarter of a mile away.

She had no idea who could be camping on the river at this place, but
she instantly set off with her own confident assurance of finding aid.
Ginger displayed no inclination to leave the particular patch of
prairie grass he had chosen for his luncheon.

As Colina approached the edge of the bank she heard a voice.  She
herself made no sound in the grass.

Looking over the edge she saw a man and a dog on the stony beach below,
both with their backs to her and oblivious of her approach.  Of the
man, she had a glimpse only of a broad blue flannel back and a mop of
black hair.

She heard him say to the dog: "Our last meal alone, old fel'!
To-night, if we're lucky, we'll dine with her!"

This conveyed nothing to Colina--she was to remember it later.

In speaking he turned his profile, and she received an agreeable shock;
he was young; he was not common; he had a fair, pink skin that
contrasted oddly with his swarthy locks; his bold profile accorded with
her fancy.

What caught her off her guard was his affectionate, quizzical glance at
the dog.

It was a seductive glimpse of a stern face softened.

The dog scented her and barked; the man turning sprang to his feet.
Colina experienced a sudden and extraordinary confusion of her
faculties.

He was taller than she expected--that was not it; in the glance of his
eager dark eyes there was a quality that took her completely by
surprise--that took her breath away.  This in one of the sex she
condescended to!

The young man was completely dumfounded by the sight of her.  He hung
in suspended motion; his wide eyes leaped to hers--and clung there.
They silently gazed at each other--each with much the same pained and
breathless look.

Colina struggled hard against the spell.  She was badly flustered.
"Please catch my horse for me," she said with, under the circumstances,
intolerable hauteur.

He did not move.  She saw a dull, red tide creep up from his neck, over
his face and into his hair.  She had never seen such a painful blush.
He kept his head up, and though his eyes became agonized with
embarrassment, they clung doggedly to hers.

She knew intuitively that he blushed because he fancied that she, from
his rough clothes, had judged him to be a common tramp.

She was glad of it--his blush gave her a little security.

But she could not support his glance.  She all but stamped her foot as
she said: "Didn't you hear me?"

With a visible effort the young man collected his wits, and with
unsmiling face started to climb toward Colina.  The dog, making to
follow him, he spoke a word of command and it returned to the boat.
Face to face with him Colina felt as if his glowing dark eyes were
burning holes in her.

"Where is he?" he asked soberly.

Colina merely pointed across the bottoms where Ginger could be seen
still busy with the grass.

"I'll bring him to you," he said coolly, and started off.

His assurance exasperated Colina.  "It isn't as easy as you think," she
said haughtily, "or I shouldn't have asked for help!"

He turned his head, his face suddenly breaking into a beaming smile.
"I know horses," he said.

Colina was furious.  He made her feel like a little girl.  She bit her
lips to keep in the undignified answer that sprang to them.  Inside her
she said it: "Smarty!  I shall laugh when he leads you a chase!"  She
sat down in the grass under a poplar-tree, prepared to enjoy the circus
from afar.

There was none.  Ginger having tired of his waywardness, perhaps, or
having eaten his fill, quietly allowed himself to be taken.  The young
man came riding back on him.  Colina could almost have wept with
mortification.

He slipped out of the saddle beside her and stood waiting for her to
mount.  There was no consciousness of triumph in his manner.

His eyes flew back to hers with the same extraordinarily naive glance.
When Colina frowned under it he literally dragged them away, but in
spite of him they soon returned.

Many a man's eyes had been offered to Colina, but never a pair that
glowed with a fire like this.  They were at the same time bold and
humble.  They contained an imploring appeal without any sacrifice of
self-respect.  They disturbed Colina to such a degree she scarcely knew
what she was doing.

He offered her a hand to mount, and she drew back with an offended air.
He instantly yielded, and she mounted unaided--mounted awkwardly, and
bit her lip again.

He did not immediately loose her rein.  Out of the corner of her eye
Colina saw that he was breathing fast.

"It will he late before you get home," he said.  His voice was very
low--she could feel the effort he was making not to let it shake.
"Will you--will you eat with me?"

The modest tendering of this bold invitation disarmed Colina.  She
hesitated.  He went on with a touch of boyish eagerness: "There's only
a traveler's grub, of course.  I got a fish on a night-line this
morning.  Also there's a prairie chicken roasted yesterday."

A self-deceiving argument ran through Colina's brain like quick-silver:
"If I go, I shall be tormented by the feeling that he got the best of
me; if I stay a while I can put him in his place!"

She dismounted.  The young man turned abruptly to tie Ginger to the
poplar-tree, but even in the boundary of his cheek Colina read his
beaming happiness.

With scarcely another glance at her he plunged down the bank and set to
work over his fire.  Colina sedately followed and seated herself on a
boulder to wait until she should be served.

Now that he no longer looked at her, Colina could not help watching
him.  A dangerous softness began to work in her breast; he was so
boyish, so clumsy, so anxious to entertain her fittingly--his
unconsciousness of her nearness was such a transparent assumption.

Colina was alarmed by her own weakness.  She looked resolutely at the
dog.

He was a mongrel black and tan, bigger than a terrier, and he had a
ridiculous curly tail.  He had received her with an insulting air of
indifference.

"What an ugly dog!" Colina said coolly.

The young man swung around and affectionately rubbed the dog's ear.

"The best sporting dog in Athabasca," he said promptly, but without any
resentment.

Colina bit her lip again.  It seemed as if everything she did was mean.
"Of course his looks haven't anything to do with his good qualities,"
she said.  Here she was apologizing.

"He's almost human," said the young man.  "I talk to him like a person."

"Come here, dog," said Colina.

The animal was suddenly stricken with deafness.

"What's his name?" she asked.

"Job."

"Come here, Job!" said Colina coaxingly.

Job looked out across the river.

"Job!" said his master sternly.

The dog sprang to him as if they had been parted for years, and
frantically licked his hand.  This display of boundless affection was
suspiciously self-conscious.

The young man led him to Colina's feet.  "Mind your manners!" he
commanded.

Job in utter abasement offered her a limp paw.  She touched it, and he
scampered back to his former place with an air of relief, and turning
his back to her lay down again.  It cannot be said that his enforced
obedience made her feel any better.




CHAPTER V.

AN INVITATION TO DINE.

Lunch was not long in preparing, for the rice had been on the fire when
Colina first appeared.  The young man set forth the meal as temptingly
as he could on a flat rock, and at the risk of breaking his sinews
carried another rock for Colina to sit upon.  His apologies for the
discrepancies in the service disarmed Colina again.

"I am no fine lady," she said.  "I know what it is to live out."

Colina was hungry and the food good.  A good understanding rapidly
established itself between them.  But the young man made no move to
serve himself.  Indeed he sat at the other side of the rock-table and
produced his pipe.

"Why don't you eat?" demanded Colina.

"There is plenty of time," he said, blushing.

"But why wait?"

"Well--there's only one knife and fork."

"Is that all?" said Colina coolly.  "We can pass them back and
forth--can't we?"

Starting up and dropping the pipe in his pocket he flashed a look of
extraordinary rapture on her that brought Colina's eyelids fluttering
down like winged birds.  He was a disconcerting young man.  Resentment
moved her, but she couldn't think of anything to say.

They ate amicably, passing the utensils back and forth.

After a while Colina asked: "Do you know who I am?"

"Of course," he said.  "Miss Colina Gaviller."

"I don't know you," she said.

"I am Ambrose Doane, of Moultrie."

"Where is Moultrie?"

"On Lake Miwasa--three hundred miles down the river."

"Three hundred miles!" exclaimed Colina.  "Have you come so far alone?"

"I have Job," Ambrose said with a smile.

"How much farther are you going?" she asked.

"Only to Fort Enterprise."

"Oh!" she said.  The question in the air was: "What did you come for?"
Both felt it.

"Do you know my father?" Colina asked.

"No," said Ambrose.

"I suppose you have business with him?"

"No," he said again.

Colina glanced at him with a shade of annoyance.  "We don't have many
visitors in the summer," she said carelessly.

"I suppose not," said Ambrose simply.

Colina was a woman--and an impulsive one; it was bound to come sooner
or later: "What did you come for?"

His eyes pounced on hers with the same look of mixed boldness and
apprehension that she had marked before; she saw that he caught his
breath before answering.

"To see you!" he said.

Colina saw it coming, and would have given worlds to have recalled the
question.  She blushed all over--a horrible, unequivocal, burning
blush.  She hated herself for blushing--and hated him for making her.

"Upon my word!" she stammered.  It was all she could get out.

He did not triumph over her discomfiture; his eyes were cast down, and
his hand trembled.  Colina could not tell whether he were more bold or
simple.  She had a sinking fear that here was a young man capable of
setting all her maxims on men at naught.  She didn't know what to do
with him.

"What do you know about me?" she demanded.

It sounded feeble in her own ears.  She felt that whatever she might
say he was marching steadily over her defenses.  Somehow, everything
that he said made them more intimate.

"There was a fellow from here came by our place," said Ambrose simply.
"Poly Goussard.  He told us about you--"

"Talked about me!" cried Colina stormily.

"You should have heard what he said," said Ambrose with his
venturesome, diffident smile.  "He thinks you are the most beautiful
woman in the world!"  Ambrose's eyes added that he agreed with Poly.

It was impossible for Colina to be angry at this, though she wished to
be.  She maintained a haughty silence.

Ambrose faltered a little.

"I--I haven't talked to a white girl in a year," he said.  "This is our
slack season--so I--I came to see you."

If Colina had been a man this was very like what she might have
said---to meet with candor equal to her own in the other sex, however,
took all the wind out of her sails.

"How dare you!" she murmured, conscious of sounding ridiculous.

Ambrose cast down his eyes.  "I have not said anything insulting," he
said doggedly.  "After what Poly said it was natural for me to want to
come and see you."

"In the slack season," she murmured sarcastically.

"I couldn't have come in the winter," he said naively.

Colina despised herself for disputing with him.  She knew she ought to
have left at once--but she was unable to think of a sufficiently
telling remark to cover a dignified retreat.

"You are presumptuous!" she said haughtily.

"Presumptuous?" he repeated with a puzzled air.

She decided that he was more simple than bold.  "I mean that men do not
say such things to women," she began as one might rebuke a little
boy--but the conclusion was lamentable, "to women to whom they have not
even been introduced!"

"Oh," he said, "I'm sorry!  I can only stay a few days.  I wanted to
get acquainted as quickly as possible."

A still small voice whispered to Colina that this was a young man after
her own heart.  Aloud she remarked languidly: "How about me?  Perhaps I
am not so anxious."

He looked at her doubtfully, not quite knowing how to take this.
"Really he is too simple!" thought Colina.

"Of course I knew I would have to take my chance," he said.  "I didn't
expect you to be waiting on the bank with a brass band and a wreath of
flowers!"

He smiled so boyishly that Colina, in spite of herself, was obliged to
smile back.  Suddenly the absurd image caused them to burst out
laughing simultaneously--and Colina felt herself lost.

Laughter was as dangerous as a train of gunpowder.  Even while he
laughed Colina saw that look spring out of his eyes--the mysterious
look that made her feel faint and helpless.

He leaned toward her and a still more candid avowal trembled on his
lips.  Colina saw it coming.  Her look of panic-terror restrained him.
He closed his mouth firmly and turned away his head.

Presently he offered her a breast of prairie chicken with a
matter-of-fact air.  She shook her head, and a silence fell between
them--a terrible silence.

"Oh, why don't I go!" thought Colina despairingly.

It was Ambrose who eased the tension by saying comfortably: "It's a
great experience to travel alone.  Your senses seem to be more
alert--you take in more."

He went on to tell her about his trip, and Colina lulled to security
almost before she knew it was recounting her own journey in the
preceding autumn.  It was astonishing when they stuck to ordinary
matters--how like old friends they felt.  Things did not need to be
explained.

It provided Colina with a good opportunity to retire.  She rose.

Ambrose's face fell absurdly.  "Must you go?" he said.

"I suppose I will meet you officially--later," she said.

He raised a pair of perplexed eyes to her face.  "I never thought about
an introduction," he said quite humbly.  "You see we never had any
ladies up here."

In the light of his uncertainty Colina felt more assured.  "Oh, we're
sufficiently introduced by this time," she said offhand.

"But--what should I do at the fort?" he asked.  "How can I see you
again?"

She smiled with a touch of scorn at his simplicity.  "That is for you
to contrive.  You will naturally call on my father; if he likes you, he
will bring you home to dinner."

Ambrose smiled with obscure meaning.  "He will never do that," he said.

"Why not?" demanded Colina.

"My partner and I are free-traders," he explained; "the only
free-traders of any account in the Company's territory.  Naturally they
are bitter against us."

"But business is one thing and hospitality another," said Colina.

"You do not know what hard feeling there is in the fur trade," he
suggested.

"You do not know my father," she retorted.

"Only by reputation," said Ambrose.

The shade of meaning in his voice was not lost on her.  Her cheeks
became warm.  "All white men who come to the post dine with us as a
matter of course," she said.  "We owe you the hospitality.  I invite
you now in his name and my own."

"I would rather you asked him about me first," said Ambrose.

This made Colina really angry.  "I do not consult him about household
matters," she said stiffly.

"Of course not," said Ambrose; "but in this case I would be more
comfortable if you spoke to him first."

"Are you afraid of him?" she inquired with raised eyebrows.

"No," said Ambrose coolly; "but I don't want to get you into trouble."

Colina's eyes snapped.  "Thank you," she said; "you needn't be anxious.
You had better come--we dine at seven."

"I will be there," he said.

By this time she was mounted.  As she gave Ginger his head Ambrose
deftly caught her hand and kissed it.  Colina was not displeased.  If
it had been self-consciously done she would have fumed.

She rode home with an uncomfortable little thought nagging at her
breast.  Was he really so simple as she had decided?  Had he not baited
her into losing her temper--and insisting on his coming to dinner?
Surely he could not know her so well as that!

"Anyway, he _is_ coming!" she thought with a little gush of
satisfaction she did not stop to examine.  "I'll wear evening dress,
the black taffeta, and my string of pearls.  At my own table it will be
easier--and with father there to support me!  We will see!"




CHAPTER VI.

THE DINNER.

Colina did not see her father until he came home from the store for
dinner.  She was already dressed and engaged in arranging the table.

John Gaviller's eyes gleamed approvingly at the sight of her in her
finery.  Black silk became Colina's blond beauty admirably.  Manlike,
he arrogated the extra preparations to himself.  He thought it was a
kind of peace offering from Colina.

"Well!" he began jocularly, only to check himself at the sight of three
places set at the table.  "Who's coming?" he demanded with natural
surprise.

Colina, busying herself attentively with the centerpiece of painter's
brush, wondered if her father had met Ambrose Doane.  She gave him a
brief, offhand account of her adventure without mentioning their
guest's name.

"But who is it?" he asked.

She answered a little breathlessly; "Ambrose Doane of Moultrie."

Gaviller's face changed slightly.  "H-m!" he said non-committally.

"Doesn't the table look nice?" said Colina quickly.

"Very nice," he said.

"We must prove to ourselves once in a while that we are not savages!"

"Naturally!  Do you want me to dress?"

Colina, who had not looked at her father, nevertheless felt the
inimical atmosphere.  She stooped to a touch of flattery.  "You are
always well dressed," she said, smiling at him.

"Hm!" said Gaviller again.  "Call me when you're ready."  He marched
off to his library.

Colina breathed freely.  So far so good!  Ambrose Doane had not been to
call on her father.  He was hardly the simple youth she had decided.
But she couldn't think the less of him for that.

When she heard the door-bell ring--Gaviller's house boasted the only
door-bell north of Caribou Lake--her heart astonished her with its
thumping.  She ran up to her own room.  Ambrose according to
instructions previously given was to be shown into the drawing-room.

Another wonder of Gaviller's house was the full-length mirror imported
for Colina.  She ran to it now.  It treated her kindly.  The crisp,
thin, dead-black draperies showed up her white skin in dazzling
contrast.

On second thought she left off the string of pearls.  The effect was
better without any ornament.  Her face was her despair; her eyes were
misty and unsure; the color came and went in her cheeks; she could not
keep her lips closed.

"You fool!  You fool!" she stormed at herself.  "A man you have seen
once!  He will despise you!"

She could not keep the dinner waiting.  Bracing herself, she started
for the hall.  A final glance in the mirror gave her better heart.
After all she was beautiful and beautifully dressed.  She descended the
stairs slowly, whispering to herself at every step: "Be game!"

Though the sun was still shining out-of-doors, according to Colina's
fancy, every night at this hour the shutters were closed and the lamps
lighted.  The drawing-room was lighted by a single, tall lamp with a
yellow shade.

Ambrose was standing in the middle of the room.  He had changed his
clothes.  His suit was somewhat wrinkled, and his boots unpolished, but
he looked less badly than he thought.  At sight of Colina he caught his
breath and turned very pale.  His eyes widened with something akin to
awe.  Colina was suddenly relieved.

"So you dared to come!" she said with a careless smile.

He did not answer.  Plainly he could not.  He stood as if rooted to the
floor.  Colina had meant to offer him her hand, but suddenly changed
her mind.

Instead, with reckless bravado considering her late state of mind, she
went to the lamp and turned it up.  She felt his honest, stricken
glance following her, and thrilled under it.

"You have not met my father?"

Ambrose "took a brace" as he would have said.  "No," he answered.

"I thought very likely you would see him this afternoon," she said with
a touch of smiling malice.

His directness foiled it.

"I waited down the river," he said.  "I didn't want to have a row with
him that might spoil to-night."

"What a terrible opinion you have of poor father!" said Colina.

"Does he know I'm coming?" asked Ambrose.

"Certainly!"

"What did he say?"

"Nothing!  What should he say?"

"He has boasted that no free-trader ever dared set foot in his
territory."

"I don't believe it!  It's not like him.  Come along and you'll see."

"Wait!" said Ambrose quickly.  "Half a minute!"

Colina looked at him curiously.

"You don't know what this means to me!" he went on, his glowing,
unsmiling eyes fixed on her.  "A lady's drawing-room!  A lamp with a
soft, pretty shade!--and you--like that!  I--I wasn't prepared for it!"

Colina laughed softly.  She was filled with a great tenderness for him,
therefore she could jeer a little.

Ambrose had not moved from the spot where she found him.

"It's not fair," he went on.  "You don't need that!  It bowls a man
over."

This was the ordinary language of gallantry--yet it was different.
Colina liked it.  "Come on," she said lightly, "father is like a bear
when he is kept waiting for dinner!"

The two men shook hands in a natural, friendly way.  With another man
Ambrose was quite at ease.  Colina approved the way her youth stood up
to the famous old trader without flinching.  They took places at the
table, and the meal went swimmingly.

Ambrose, whether he felt his affable host's secret animosity and was
stimulated by it, or for another reason, suddenly blossomed into an
entertainer.  When her father was present he addressed Colina's ear,
her chin or her golden top-knot, never her eyes.

John Gaviller apparently never looked at her either, but Colina knew he
was watching her closely.  She was not alarmed.  She had herself well
in hand, and there was nothing in her politely smiling, slightly
scornful air to give the most anxious parent concern.

Under the jokes, the laughter, and the friendly talk throughout dinner,
there were electric intimations that caused Colina's nostrils to
quiver.  She loved the smell of danger.

It was no easy matter to keep the conversational bark on an even keel;
the rocks were thick on every hand.  Business, politics, and local
affairs were all for obvious reasons tabooed.  More than once they were
near an upset, as when they began to talk of Indians.

Ambrose had related the anecdote of Tom Beavertail who, upon seeing a
steamboat for the first time, had made a paddle-wheel for his canoe,
and forced his sons to turn him about the lake.

"Exactly like them!" said John Gaviller with his air of amused scorn.
"Ingenious in perfectly useless ways!  Featherheaded as schoolboys!"

"But I like schoolboys!" Ambrose protested.  "It isn't so long since I
was one myself."

"Schoolboys is too good a word," said Gaviller.  "Say, apes."

"I have a kind of fellow-feeling for them," said Ambrose smiling.

"How long have you been in the north?"

"Two years."

"I've been dealing with them thirty years," said Gaviller with an air
of finality.

Ambrose refused to be silenced.  Looking around the luxurious room he
felt inclined to remark, that Gaviller had made a pretty good thing out
of the despised race, but he checked himself.

"Sometimes I think we never give them a show," he said with a
deprecating air, "We're always trying to cut them to our own pattern
instead of taking them as they are.  They are like schoolboys, as you
say.

"Most of the trouble with them comes from the fact that anybody can
lead them into mischief, just like boys.  If we think of what we were
like ourselves before we put on long trousers it helps to understand
them."

Gaviller raised his eyebrows a little at hearing the law laid down by
twenty-five years old.

"Ah!" he said quizzically.  "In my day the use of the rod was thought
necessary to make boys into men!"

Ambrose grew a little warm.  "Certainly!" he said.  "But it depends on
the spirit with which it is applied.  How can we do anything with them
if we treat them like dirt?"

"You are quite successful in handling them?" queried Gaviller dryly.

"Peter Minot says so," said Ambrose simply.  "That is why he took me
into partnership."

"He married a Cree, didn't he?" inquired Gaviller casually.

Colina glanced at her father in surprise.  This was hardly playing fair
according to her notions.

"A half-breed," corrected Ambrose.

"Of course, Eva Lajeunesse, I remember now," said Gaviller.  "She was
quite famous around Caribou Lake some years ago."

Ambrose with an effort kept his temper.  "She has made him a good
wife," he said loyally.

"Ah, no doubt!" said Gaviller affably.  "Do you live with them?"

"I have my own house," said Ambrose stiffly.

Here Colina made haste to create a diversion.

"Aren't the Indian kids comical little souls?" she remarked.  "I go to
the mission school sometimes to sing and play for them.  They don't
think much of it.  One of the girls asked me for a hair.  One hair was
all she wanted."

The subject of Indian children proved to be innocuous.  They took
coffee in John Gaviller's library.

"Colina brought these new-fangled notions in with her," said her father.

"They're all right!" said Ambrose soberly.

Colina saw the hand that held his spoon tremble slightly, and wondered
why.  The fact was the thought could not but occur to him: "How foolish
for me to think she could ever bring her lovely, ladylike ways to my
little shack!"

He thrust the unnerving thought away.  "I can build a bigger house,
can't I?" he demanded of himself.  "Anyway, I'll make the best play to
get her that I can!"

In the library they talked about furniture.  It transpired that the
trader had a passion for cabinet making, and most of the objects that
surrounded them were examples of his skill.  Ambrose admired them with
due politeness, meanwhile his heart was sinking.  He could not see the
slightest chance of getting a word alone with Colina.

In the middle of the evening a breed came to the door, hat in hand, to
say that John Gaviller's Hereford bull was lying down in his stall and
groaning.  The trader bit his lip and glanced at Colina.

"Would you like to come and see my beasts?" he asked affably.

"Thanks," said Ambrose just as politely.  "I'm no hand with cattle."
He kept his eyes discreetly down.

Gaviller could not very well turn him out of the house.  There was no
help for it.  He went.




CHAPTER VII.

TWO INTERVIEWS.

The instant the door closed behind Gaviller, Ambrose's eyes flamed up.
"What a stroke of luck!" he cried.

It had something the effect of an explosion there in the quiet room
where they had been talking so prosily.  Colina became panicky.  "I
don't understand you!" she said haughtily.

"You do!" he cried.  "You know I didn't paddle three hundred miles
up-stream to talk to him!  Never in my life had I anything so hard to
go through with as the last two hours.  I didn't dare look at you for
fear of giving myself away."

There was an extraordinary quality of passion in the simple words.
Colina felt faint and terrified.  What was one to do with a man like
this!  She mounted her queenliest manner.  "Don't make me sorry I asked
you here," she said.

"Sorry?" he said.  "Why should you be?  You can do what you like!  I
can't pretend.  I must say my say the best way I can.  I may not get
another chance!"

Colina had to fight both herself and him.  She made a gallant stand.
"You are ridiculous!" she said.  "I will leave the room until my father
comes back if you can't contain yourself."

He was plainly terrified by the threat, nevertheless he had the
assurance to put himself between her and the door.

"You have no cause to be angry with me," he said.  "You know I do not
disrespect you!"  He was silent for a moment.  His voice broke huskily.
"You are wonderful to me!  I have to keep telling myself you are only a
woman--of flesh and blood like myself--else I would be groveling on the
floor at your feet, and you would despise me!"

Colina stared at him in haughty silence.

"I love you!" he whispered with odd abruptness.  "No woman need be
insulted by hearing that.  You came upon me to-day like a bolt of
lightning.  You have put your mark on me for life!  I will never be
myself again."

His voice changed; he faltered, and searched for words.  "I know I'm
rough!  I know women like to be courted regularly.  It's right, too!
But I have no time!  I may never see you alone again.  Your father will
take care of that!  I must tell you while I can.  You can take your
time to answer."

Colina contrived to laugh.

The sound maddened him.  He took a step forward, and a vein in his
forehead stood out.  She held her ground disdainfully.

"Don't do that!" he whispered.  "It's not fair!  I--I can't stand it!"

"Why must you tell me?" asked Colina.  "What do you expect?"

"You!" he whispered hoarsely.  "If God is good to me!  For life."

"You are mad!" she murmured.

"Maybe," he said, eying her with the resentment which is so closely
akin to love; "but I think you understand my madness.  Talking gets us
nowhere.  A dozen times to-day your eyes answered mine.  Either you
feel it too or you are a coquette!"

This brought a genuine anger to Colina's aid.  Her weakness fled.  "How
dare you!" she cried with blazing eyes.

"Coquette!" he repeated doggedly.  "To dress yourself up like that to
drive me mad!"

Colina forgot the social amenities.  "You fool!" she cried.  "This is
my ordinary way of dressing at night!  It is not for you!"

"It was for me!" he said sullenly.  "You were happy when you saw its
effect on me!  If it's only a game I can't play it with you.  It means
too much to me!"

"Coquette!" still made a clangor in Colina's brain that deafened her to
everything else.  "You are a savage!" she cried.  "I'm sorry I asked
you here.  You needn't wait for my father to come back.  Go!"

"Not without a plain answer!" he said.

Colina tried to laugh; she was too angry.  "My answer is no!" she cried
with outrageous scorn.  "Now go!"

He stood studying her from under lowering brows.  The sight of her like
that--head thrown back, eyes glittering, cheeks scarlet, and lips
curled--was like a lash upon his manhood.  The answer was plain enough,
but an instinct from the great mother herself bade him disregard it.
Suddenly his eyes flamed up.

"You beauty!" he cried.

Before she could move he had seized her in her finery.  Colina was no
weakling, but within those steely arms she was helpless.  She strained
away her head.  He could only reach her neck, under the ear.  She
yielded shudderingly.

"I hate you!  I hate you!" she murmured.

Their lips met.


Colina swayed ominously on his arm.  She sank down on the sofa, still
straining away from him, but weakly.  Suddenly she burst into
passionate weeping.

"What have you done to me!" she murmured.

At sight of the tears he collapsed.  "Ah, don't!" he whispered
brokenly.  "You break my heart!  My darling love!  What is the matter?"

"I am a fool--a fool!--a fool!" she sobbed tempestuously.  "To have
given in to you!  You will despise me!"

He slipped to the floor at her feet.  He strove desperately to comfort
her.  Tenderness lent eloquence to his clumsy, unaccustomed tongue.

"Ah, don't say that!   It's like sticking a knife in me!  My lovely
one!  As if I could!  You are everything to me!  I have nothing in the
world but you!  Forgive me for being so rough!  I couldn't help it!  I
couldn't go by anything you said.  I had to find out for sure!  It had
to happen!  What does it matter whether it was in a day or a year?  The
minute I saw you I knew how it was.  I knew I had to have you or live
like a priest till I died."

Colina was not to be comforted.  "You think so now!" she said.  "Later,
when you have tired of me a little, or if we quarreled, you would
remember that I--I was too easily won!"

"Ah, don't!" he cried exasperated.  "If you say it again I'll have to
swear.  What more can I say?  I love you like my life!  I could not
despise you without despising myself!  I don't know how to put it.  I
sound like a fool!  But--but this is what I mean.  You make me seem
worth while to myself."

Colina's hands stole to her breast.  "Ah!  If I could believe you!" she
breathed.

"Give me time!" he begged.  "What good does talking do!  What I do will
show you!"

Little by little she allowed him to console her.  Her arm stole around
his shoulders, her head was lowered until her cheek lay in his hair.


They came down to earth.  Ambrose seated himself beside her, and
looking in her shamed face laughed softly and deep.  "You fraud," he
said.

Colina hid her face.  "Don't!" she begged.

He laughed more.

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded.

"To think how you scared me," he said.  "With your grand clothes and
high and mighty airs.  I had to dig my toes into the floor to keep from
cutting and running.  And it was all bluff!"

"Scared you!" said Colina.  "I never in my life knew a man so utterly
regardless and brutal!"

"You like it," he said.  Colina blushed.

"I had no line to go on," said Ambrose with his engaging simplicity.
"I never made love to any girls.  I haven't read many books either.  I
guess that's all guff, anyway.  I didn't know how the thing ought to be
carried through.  But something told me if I knuckled under to you the
least bit it would be all day with Ambrose."

They laughed together.

John Gaviller's step sounded on the porch outside.  They sprang up
aghast.  They had completely forgotten his existence.

"Oh, Heavens!" whispered Colina.  "He has eyes like a lynx!"

Ambrose's eyes, darting around the room, fell upon an album of
snapshots lying on the table.  He flung it open.

When Gaviller came in he found them standing at the table, their backs
to him.  He heard Ambrose ask:

"Who is that comical little guy?"

Colina replied: "Ahcunazie, one of the Kakisa Indians in his winter
clothes."

Colina turned, presenting a sufficiently composed face to her father.
"Oh," she said.  "You were gone a long while.  What was the matter with
the bull?"

She strolled to the sofa and sat down.  Ambrose idly closed the book
and sat down across the room from her.  Gaviller glanced from one to
another--perhaps it was a little too well done.  But his face instantly
resumed its customary affability.

"Nothing serious," he said.  "He is quite all right again."

Ambrose was tormented by the desire to laugh.  He dared not meet
Colina's eye.  "It is terrible to lose a valuable animal up here," he
said demurely.

After a few desultory polite exchanges Ambrose got up to go.  "I was
waiting to say good night to you," he explained.

"You are camping down the river, I believe."

"Half a mile below the English mission.  I paddled up."

"I'll walk to the edge of the bank with you," said Gaviller politely.

As in nearly all company posts there was a flag-pole in the most
conspicuous spot on the river-bank.  It was halfway between Gaviller's
house and the store.  At the foot of the pole was a lookout-bench worn
smooth by generations of sitters.

Leaving the house after a formal good night to Colina, Ambrose was
escorted as far as the bench by John Gaviller.  The trader held forth
amiably upon the weather and crops.  They paused.

"Sit down for a moment," said Gaviller.  "I have something particular
to say to you."

Ambrose suspected what was coming.  But humming with happiness like a
top as he was, he could not feel greatly concerned.

Still in the same calm, polite voice Gaviller said:

"I confess I was astonished at your assurance in coming to my house."

This was a frank declaration of war.  Ambrose, steeling himself,
replied warily: "I did not come on business."

"What did you come for?"

Ambrose did not feel obliged to be as frank with father as with
daughter.  "I am merely looking at the country."

"Well, now that you have seen Fort Enterprise," said Gaviller dryly,
"you may go on or go back.  I do not care so long as you do not linger."

Ambrose frowned.  "If you were a younger man--" he began.

"You need not consider my age," said Gaviller.

Ambrose measured his man.  He had to confess he had good pluck.  The
idea of a set-to with Colina's father was unthinkable.  There was
nothing for him to do but swallow the affront.  He bethought himself of
using a little guile.

"Why shouldn't I come here?" he demanded.

"I don't like the way you and your partner do business," said Gaviller.

There was nothing to be gained by a wordy dispute, but Ambrose was only
human.  "You are sore because we smashed the company's monopoly at
Moultrie," he said.

"Not at all," said Gaviller calmly.  "The trade is free to all.  What
little you have taken from us is not noticeable in the whole volume.
But you have deliberately set to work to destroy what it has taken two
centuries to build up--the white man's supremacy.  You breed trouble
among the Indians.  You make them insolent and dangerous."

"Company talk," said Ambrose scornfully.  "A man can make himself
believe what he likes.  We treat the Indians like human beings.  Around
us they're doing well for the first time.  Here, where you have your
monopoly, they're sick and starving!"

"That is not true," said Gaviller coolly.  "And, in any case, I do not
mean to discuss my business with you.  I deal openly.  You had the
opportunity to do my daughter a slight service.  I have repaid it with
my hospitality.  We are quits.  I now warn you not to show your face
here again."

"I shall do as I see fit," said Ambrose doggedly.

"You compel me to speak still more plainly," said Gaviller.  "If you
are found on the Company's property again, you will be thrown off."

"You cannot frighten me with threats," said Ambrose.

"You are warned!" said Gaviller.  He strode off to his house.




CHAPTER VIII.

IN AMBROSE'S CAMP.

Ambrose was awakened in his mosquito-tent by an alarm from Job.  The
sun was just up, and it was therefore no more than three o'clock.  A
visitor was approaching in a canoe.

In the North a caller is a caller.  Ambrose crept out of his blankets
and, swallowing his yawns, stuck his head in the river to clear his
brain.

The visitor was a handsome young breed of Ambrose's own age.  Ambrose
surveyed his broad shoulders, his thin, graceful waist and thighs
approvingly.  He rejoiced in an animal built for speed and endurance.
Moreover, the young man's glance was direct and calm.  This was a
native who respected himself.

"Tole Grampierre, me," he said, offering his hand.

Ambrose grasped it.  "I'm Ambrose Doane," he said.

"I know," said the young breed.  "Las' night I go to the store.  The
boys say Ambrose Doane, the free-trader, is camp' down the river.  So I
talk wit' my fat'er.  I say I go and shake Ambrose Doane by the hand."

"Will you eat?" said Ambrose.  "It is early."

"When you are ready," answered Tole politely.  "I come early.  I go
back before they get up at the fort.  If old man Gaviller know I come
to you it mak' trouble.  My fat'er he got trouble enough wit' Gaviller."

Tole squatted on the beach.  There is an established ritual of
politeness in the North, and he was punctilious.

"You are well?" he asked gravely.  Ambrose set about making his fire.
"I am well," he said.

"Your partner, he is well?"

"Peter Minot is well."

"You do good trade at Lake Miwasa?"

"Yes.  Marten is plentiful."

"Good fur here, too.  Not much marten; plenty link."

"Your father is well?" asked Ambrose in turn.

"My fat'er is well," said Tole.  "My four brot'ers well, too."

"I am glad," said Ambrose.

More polite conversation was exchanged while Ambrose waited for his
guest to declare the object of his visit.  It came at last.

"Often I talk wit' my fat'er," said Tole.  "I say there is not'ing for
me here.  Old man Gaviller all tam mad at us.  We don't get along.  I
say I fink I go east to Lake Miwasa.  There is free trade there.  Maybe
I get work in the summer.  When they tell me Ambrose Doane is come, I
say this is lucky.  I will talk wit' him."

"Good," said Ambrose.

"Wat you t'ink?" asked Tole, masking anxiety under a careless air.  "Is
there work at Moultrie in the summer?"

Ambrose instinctively liked and trusted his man.  "Sure," he said.
"There is room for good men."

"Good," said Tole calmly.  "I go back wit' you."

Ambrose had a strong curiosity to learn of the situation at Fort
Enterprise.  "What do you mean by saying old man Gaviller is mad at
you?" he asked.

"I tell you," said Tole.  He filled his pipe and got it going well
before he launched on his tale.

"My fat'er, Simon Grampierre, he is educate'," he began.  "He read in
books, he write, he spik Angleys, he spik French, he spik the Cree.  We
are Cree half-breed.  My fat'er's fat'er, my mot'er's fat'er, they
white men.  We are proud people.  We own plenty land.  We live in a
good house.  We are workers.

"All the people on ot'er side the river call my fat'er head man.  When
there is trouble all come to our house to talk to my fat'er because he
is educate'.  He got good sense.

"Before, I tell you there is good fur here.  It is the truth.  But the
people are poor.  Every year they are more poor as last year.  The
people say: 'Bam-by old man Gaviller tak' our shirts!  He got
everyt'ing else.'  They ask my fat'er w'at to do."

Tole went on: "Always my fat'er say: 'Wait,' he say.  'We got get white
man on our side.  We got get white man who knows all outside ways.  He
bring an outfit in and trade wit' us.'  The people don't want to wait.
'We starve!' they say.

"My fat'er say: '_Non_!  Gaviller not let you starve.  For why, because
you not bring him any fur if you dead.  He will keep you goin' poor.
Be patient,' my fat'er say.  'This is rich country.  It is known
outside.  Bam-by some white man come wit' outfit and pay good prices.'

"Always my fat'er try to have no trouble," continued Tole.  "But old
man Gaviller hear about the meetings at our house.  He hear everyt'ing.
He write a letter to my fat'er that the men mus' come no more.

"My fat'er write back.  My fat'er say: 'This my house.  This people my
relations, my friends.  My door is open to all.'  Then old man Gaviller
is mad.  He call my fat'er mal-content.  He tak' away his discount."

"Discount?" interrupted Ambrose.

Tole frowned at the difficulty of explaining this in English.  "All
goods in the store marked by prices," he said slowly.  "Too moch
prices.  Gaviller say for good men and good hunters he tak' part of
price away.  He tak' a quarter part of price away.  He call that
discount.  If a man mak' him mad he put it back again."

The working out of such a scheme was clear to Ambrose.  "Hm!" he
commented grimly.  "This is how a monopoly gets in its innings."

"Always my fat'er not want any trouble," Tole went on.  "Pretty soon, I
t'ink, the people not listen to him no more.  They are mad.  This year
there will be trouble about the grain.  Gaviller put the price down to
dollar-fifty bushel.  But he sell flour the same."

"Do you mean to say he buys your grain at his own price, and sells you
back the flour at his own price?" demanded Ambrose.

Tole nodded.  "My fat'er the first farmer here," he explained.  "Long
tam ago when I was little boy, Gaviller come to my fat'er.  He say:
'You have plenty good land.  You grow wheat and I grind it, and both
mak' money.'

"My fat'er say: 'I got no plow, no binder, no thresher.'  Gaviller say:
'I bring them in for you.'  Gaviller say: 'I pay you two-fifty bushel
for wheat.  I can do it up here.  You pay me for the machines a little
each year.'

"My fat'er t'ink about it.  He is not moch for farm.  But he t'ink,
well, some day there is no more fur.  But always there is mouths for
bread.  If I be farmer and teach my boys, they not starve when fur is
no more.

"My fat'er say to Gaviller: 'All right.'  Writings are made and signed.
The ot'er men with good land on the river, they say they raise wheat,
too.

"After that the machines is brought in.  Good crops is raised.
Ev'rything is fine.  Bam-by Gaviller put the price down to
two-twenty-five.  Bam-by he only pay two dollar.  Tams is hard, he say.
Las' year he pay one-seventy-five.  Now he say one-fifty all he pay.

"The farmers say they so poor now, might as well have nothing.  They
say they not cut the grain this year.  Gaviller say it is his grain.
He will go on their land and cut it.  There will be trouble."

"This is a kind of slavery!" cried Ambrose.

"There is more to mak' trouble," Tole went on with his calm air.
"Three years ago Gaviller build a fine big steamboat.  He say: 'Now,
boys, you can go outside when you want.'  He says: 'This big boat will
bring us ev'rything good and cheap from outside.'

"But when she start it is thirty dollars for a man to go to the
Crossing.  And fifty cents for every meal.  Nobody got so much money as
that.

"It is the same to bring t'ings in.  Not'ing is cheaper.  Jean Bateese
Gagnon, he get a big book from outside.  In that book there is all
things to buy and pictures to show them.  The people outside will send
you the t'ings.  You send money in a letter."

"Mail order catalogue," suggested Ambrose.

"That is the name of the book," said Tole.  In describing its wonders
he lost, for the first time, some of his imperturbable air.  "Wa!  Wa!
All is so cheap inside that book.  It is wonderful.  Three suits of
clothes cost no more as one at the Company store.

"Everyt'ing is in that book.  A man can get shirts of silk.  A man can
get a machine to milk a cow.  All the people want to send money for
t'ings.  Gaviller say no.  Gaviller say steamboat only carry Company
freight.  Gaviller say: 'Come to me for what you want and I get it--at
regular prices.'"

"And this is supposed to be a free country," said Ambrose.

"The men are mad," continued Tole.  "They do not'ing.  Only Jean
Bateese Gagnon.  He is the mos' mad.  He say he don' care.  He send the
money for a plow las' summer.  All wait to see w'at Gaviller will do.

"Gaviller let the steamboat bring it down.  He say the freight is
fifteen dollars.  Jean Bateese say: 'Tak' it back again.  I won't pay.'
Gaviller say: 'You got to pay.'  He put it on the book against Gagnon."

Tole related other incidents of a like character, Ambrose listened with
ever mounting indignation.  There could be no mistaking the truthful
ring of the simple details.

Not only was Ambrose's sense of humanity up in arms, but the trader in
him was angered that a competitor should profit by such unfair means.
With a list of grievances on one side and unqualified sympathy on the
other, the two progressed in friendship.

They breakfasted together, Job making a third.  Ambrose found himself
more and more strongly drawn to the young fellow.  He was reminded that
he had no friend of his own age in the country.  Tole, he said to
himself, was whiter than many a white man he had known.

Job, who as a rule drew the colorline sharply, was polite to Tole.  Job
was pleased because Tole ignored him.  Uninvited overtures from
strangers made Job self-conscious.

Tole and Ambrose, being young, drifted away from serious business after
a while.  They discussed sport.  Tole lost some of his gravity in
talking about hunting the moose.

Not until Tole was on the point of embarking did the real object of his
visit transpire.  "My father say he want you come to his house," he
said diffidently.

"Sure I will," said Ambrose.

Tole lingered by his dugout, affecting to test the elasticity of his
paddle on the stones.  He glanced at Ambrose with a speculative eye.

"Maybe you and Peter Minot open a store across the river and trade with
us," he suggested with a casual air.

Ambrose was staggered by the possibilities it opened up.  He knew the
idea was already in Peter's mind.  What if he, Ambrose, should be
chosen to carry it out?  He sparred for wind.

"I don't know," he said warily.  "There is much to be considered.  I
will talk with your father."

Tole nodded and pushed off.




CHAPTER IX.

LOVERS.

Ambrose and Colina had had no opportunity the night before to arrange
for another meeting.  Ambrose stuck close to his camp, feeling somehow
that the next move should come from her.

It was not that he had been unduly alarmed by her father's threat,
though he had a young man's healthy horror of being humiliated in the
beloved one's presence.

But the real reason that kept him inactive was an instinctive
compunction against embroiling Colina with her father.  She had only
known him, Ambrose, a day; she should have a chance to make sure of her
own mind, he felt.

As to what he would do if Colina made no move, Ambrose could not make
up his mind.  He considered a night expedition to the fort; he
considered sending a message by Tole.  Either plan had serious
disadvantages.  It was a hard nut to crack.

Then he heard hoofs on the prairie overhead.  His heart leaped up and
his problems were forgotten.  He sprang to the bank.  Job heard the
hoofs, too, and recognized the horse.  Job hopped into the empty
dugout, and lay down in the bow out of sight, like a child in disgrace.

At the sight of her racing toward him a dizzying joy swept over
Ambrose; but something was wrong.  She stopped short of him, and his
heart seemed to stop, too.

She was pale; her eyes had a dark look.  An inward voice whispered to
him that it was no more than to be expected; his happiness had been too
swift, too bright to be real.

He went toward her.  "Colina!" he cried apprehensively.

"Don't touch me!" she said sharply.

He stopped.  "What is the matter?" he faltered.

She made no move to dismount.  She did not look at him.  "I--I have had
a bad night," she murmured.  "I came to throw myself on your
generosity."

"Generosity?" he echoed.

"To--to ask you to forget what happened last night.  I was mad!"

Ambrose had become as pale as she.  He had nothing to say.

She stole a glance at his face.  At the sight of his blank, sick dismay
she quickly turned her head.  A little color came back to her cheeks.

There was a silence.

At last he said huskily: "What has happened to change you?"

"Nothing," she murmured.  "I have come to my senses."  His stony face
and his silence terrified her.  "Aren't you a little relieved?" she
faltered.  "It must have been a kind of madness in you, too."

He raised a sudden, penetrating glance to her face.  She could not meet
it.  It came to him that he was being put to a test.  The revulsion of
feeling made him brutal.  Striding forward, he seized her horse by the
rein.

"Get off!" he harshly commanded.

Colina had no thought but to obey.

He tied the rein to a limb and, turning back, seized her roughly by the
wrists.

"What kind of a game is this?" he demanded.

Colina, breathless, terrified, delighted, laughed shakily.

He dropped her as suddenly as he had seized her, and walked away to the
edge of the bank and sat down, staring sightlessly across the river and
striving to still the tumult of his blood.  He was frightened by his
own passion.  He had wished to hurt her.

Colina went to him and humbly touched his arm.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He looked at her grimly.

"You should not try such tricks," he said.  "A man's endurance has its
limits."

There was something delicious to Colina in abasing herself before him.
She caught up his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

"How was I to know?" she murmured.  "Other men are not like you."

"I might have surprised you," he said grimly.

"You did!" whispered Colina.  The suspicion of a dimple showed in
either cheek.

He rose.  "Let me alone for a minute," he said.  "I'll be all right."
He went to the horse and loosened the saddle girths.

Colina could have crawled through the grass to his feet.  She lay where
he had left her until he came back.  He sat down again, but not
touching her.  He was still pale, but he had got a grip on himself.

"Tell me," he said quietly, "did you do it just for fun, or had you a
reason?"

"I had a reason."

"What was it?" he asked in cold surprise.

"I--I can't tell you while you are angry with me," she faltered.

"I can't get over it right away," he said simply.  "Give me time."

Colina hid her face in her arm and her shoulders shook a little.  It is
doubtful if any real tears flowed, but the move was just as successful.
He leaned over and laid a tender hand on her shoulder.

"Ah, don't!" he said.  "What need you care if I am angry.  You know I
love you.  You know I--I am mad with loving you!  Why--it would have
been more merciful for you to shoot me down than come at me the way you
did!"

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "I never dreamed it would hurt so much!  I
had to do it--Ambrose!"

It was the first time she had spoken his name.  He paused for a moment
to consider the wonder of it.

"Why?" he asked dreamily.

Colina sat up.

"I worried all night about whether you would be sorry to-day," she
said, averting her head from him.  "I thought that nothing so swift
could possibly be lasting.  And then this morning father and I had a
frightful row.

"I was starting out to come to you, and he caught me.  He all but
disowned me.  I came right on--I told him I was coming.  And on the way
here I thought--I knew I would have to tell you what had happened.

"And I thought if you were secretly sorry--for last night--when you
heard about father and I--you would feel that you had to stand by me
anyway!  And then I would never know if you really--  So I had to find
out, first."

This confused explanation was perfectly clear to Ambrose.

"Will you always be doubting me?" he asked wistfully.  "Can't you
believe what you see?"

She crept under his arm.  "It was so sudden!" she murmured.  "When I am
not with you my heart fails me.  How can I be sure?"

He undertook to assure her with what eloquence his heart lent his
tongue.  The feeling was rarer than the words.

"How wonderful," said Ambrose dreamily, "for two to feel the same
toward each other!  I always thought that women, well, just allowed men
to love them."

"You dear innocent!" she whispered.  "If you knew!  Women are not
supposed to give anything away!  It makes men draw back.  It makes them
insufferable."

"It makes me humble," said Ambrose.

"You boy!" she breathed.

"I'm years older than you," he said.

"Women's hearts are born old," said Colina; "men's never grow out of
babyhood."

Her head was lying back on the thick of his arm.

"Your throat is as lovely--as lovely as pearl!" he whispered, brooding
over her.

The exquisite throat trembled with laughter.

"You're coming out!" she said.

"I don't care!" said Ambrose.  "You're as beautiful as--what is the
most beautiful thing I know?--as beautiful as a morning in June up
North."

"I don't know which I like better," she murmured.

"Of what?" he asked.

"To have you praise me or abuse me.  Both are so sweet!"

"Do you know," he said, "I am wondering this minute if I am dreaming!
I'm afraid to breathe hard for fear of waking up."

She smiled enchantingly.

"Kiss me!" she whispered.  "These are real lips."

"Sit up," he said presently, with a sigh, "We must talk hard sense to
each other.  What the devil are we going to do?"

She leaned against his shoulder.

"Whatever you decide," she said mistily.

"What did your father say to you?" asked Ambrose.

She shuddered.  "Hideous quarrelling!" she said.  "I have the temper of
a devil, Ambrose!"

"I don't care," he said.

"When I told him where I was going he took me back in the library and
started in," she went on.  "He was so angry he could scarcely speak.
If he had let it go it wouldn't have been so bad.  But to try to make
believe he wasn't angry!  His hypocrisy disgusted me.

"To go on about my own good and all that, and all the time he was just
plain mad!  I taunted him until he was almost in a state of
ungovernable fury.  He would not mention you until I forced him to.

"He said I must give him my word never to see you or speak to you
again.  I refused, of course.  He threatened to lock me up.  He said
things about you that put me beside myself.  We said ghastly things to
each other.  We are very much alike.  You'd better think twice before
you marry into such a family, Ambrose."

"I take my chance," he said.

"I'm sorry now," Colina went on.  "I know he is, too.  Poor old fellow!
I have you."

"You mustn't break with him yet," said Ambrose anxiously.

"I know.  But how can I go back and humble myself?"

"He'll meet you half-way."

"If--if we could only get in the dugout and go now!" she breathed.

He did not answer.  She saw him turn pale.

"Wouldn't it be the best way," she murmured, "since it's got to be
anyway?"

He drew a long breath and shook his head.

"I wouldn't take you now," he said doggedly.

"Of course not!" she said quickly.  "I was only joking.  But why?" she
added weakly.  Her hand crept into his.

"It wouldn't be fair," he said, frowning.  "It would be taking too much
from you."

"Too much!" she murmured, with an obscure smile.

Ambrose struggled with the difficulty of explaining what he meant.  "I
never do anything prudent myself.  I hate it.  But I can't let you
chuck everything--without thinking what you are doing.  You ought to
stay home a while--and be sure."

"It isn't going to be so easy," she said, "quarreling continually."

"I sha'n't see you again until I come for you," said Ambrose.  "And
it's useless to write letters from Moultrie to Enterprise.  I'm out of
the way.  Why can't the question of me be dropped between you and your
father?"

"Think of living on from month to month without a word!  It will be
ghastly!" she cried.

"You've only known me two days," he said sagely.  "I could not leave
such a gap as that."

"How coldly you can talk about it!" she cried rebelliously.

Ambrose frowned again.  "When you call me cold you shut me up," he said
quietly.

"But if you do not make a fuss about me every minute," she said
naively, "it shames me because I am so foolish about you."

Ambrose laughed suddenly.

There followed another interlude of celestial silliness.


This time it was Colina who withdrew herself from him.

"Ah," she said with a catch of the breath, "every minute of this is
making it harder.  I shall want to die when you leave me."

Ambrose attempted to take her in his arms again.

"No," she insisted.  "Let us try to be sensible.  We haven't decided
yet what we're going to do."

"I'm going home," said Ambrose, "to work like a galley-slave."

"It is so far," she murmured.

"I'll find some way of letting you hear from me.  Twice before the
winter sets in I'll send a messenger.  And you, you keep a little book
and write in it whenever you think of me, and send it back by my
messenger."

"A little book won't hold it all," she said naively.

"Meanwhile I'll be making a place for you.  I couldn't take you to
Moultrie."

She asked why.

"Eva, Peter's wife," he explained.  "In a way Peter is my boss, you
see.  It would be a horrible situation."

"I see," said Colina.  "But if there was no help for it I could."

"Ah, you're too good to me!" he cried.  "But it won't be necessary.
Peter and I have always intended to open other posts.  I'll take the
first one, and you and I will start on our own.  Think of it!  It makes
me silly with happiness!"

Upon this foundation they raised a shining castle in the air.

"I must go," said Colina finally, "or father will be equipping an armed
force to take me."

"You must go," he agreed, but weakly.

They repeated it at intervals without any move being made.  At last she
got up.

"Is this--good-by?" she faltered.

He nodded.

They both turned pale.  They were silent.  They gazed at each other
deeply and wistfully.

"Ah!  I can't!  I can't!" murmured Colina brokenly.  "Such a little
time to be happy!"

They flew to each other's arms.

"No--not quite good-by!" said Ambrose shakily.  "I'll write to you
to-morrow morning--everything I think of to-night.  I'll send it by
Tole Grampierre.  You can send an answer by him."

"Ah, my dear love, if you forget me I shall die!"

"You doubt me still!  I tell you, you have changed everything for me.
I cannot forget you unless I lose my mind!"




CHAPTER X.

ANOTHER VISITOR.

Ambrose, having filled the day as best he could with small tasks, was
smoking beside his fire and enviously watching his dog.  Job had no
cares to keep him wakeful.  It was about eight o'clock, and still full
day.

It was Ambrose's promise to visit Simon Grampierre that had kept him
inactive all day.  He did not wish to complicate the already delicate
situation between Grampierre and Gaviller by an open visit to the
former.  He meant to go with Tole at dawn.

Suddenly Job raised his head and growled.  In a moment Ambrose heard
the sound of a horse approaching at a walk above.  Thinking of Colina,
his heart leaped--but she would never come at a walk!  An instinct of
wariness bade him sit where he was.

A mounted man appeared on the bank above.  It was a breed forty-five
years old perhaps, but vigorous and youthful still; good looking, well
kept, with an agreeable manner; thus Ambrose's first impressions.  The
stranger rode a good horse.

"Well?" he said, looking down on Ambrose in surprise.

"Tie your horse and come down," said Ambrose politely.  He welcomed the
diversion.  This man must have come from the fort.  Perhaps he had news.

Face to face with the stranger, Ambrose was sensible that he had to
deal with an uncommon character.  There was something about him, he
could not decide what, that distinguished him from every other man of
Indian blood that Ambrose had ever met.

He wore a well-fitting suit of blue serge and a show of starched linen,
in itself a distinguishing mark up north.  "Quite a swell!" was
Ambrose's inward comment.

"You are Ambrose Doane, I suppose?" he said in English as good as
Ambrose's own.  Ambrose nodded.

"I knew you had dinner with Mr. Gaviller last night," the man went on,
"but as you didn't drop in on us at the store to-day I supposed you had
gone back.  I didn't expect to find you here."

He was fluent for one of his color--too fluent the other man felt.
Ambrose was sizing him up with interest.

It finally came to him what the man's distinguishing quality was.  It
was his open look, an expression almost of benignity, absolutely
foreign to the Indian character.  Indians may give their eyes freely to
one another, but a white man never sees beneath the glassy surface.

This Indian in look and manner resembled an English country gentleman,
much sunburnt; or one of those university-bred East Indian potentates
who affect motor-cars and polo ponies.  Oddly enough his candid look
affronted Ambrose.  "It isn't natural," he told himself.

"I am Gordon Strange, bookkeeper at Fort Enterprise," the stranger
volunteered.

The bookkeeper of a big trading-post is always second in command.
Ambrose understood that he was in the presence of a person of
consideration in the country.

"Sit down," he said.  "Fill up your pipe."

Strange obeyed.  "We're supposed to be red-hot rivals in business," he
said with an agreeable laugh.  "But that needn't prevent, eh?  Funny I
should stumble on you like this!  I ride every night after supper--a
man needs a bit of exercise after working all day in the store.  I saw
the light of your fire."

He was too anxious to have it understood that the meeting was
accidental.  Ambrose began to suspect that he had ridden out on purpose
to see him.

The better men among the natives, such as Tole Grampierre, have a pride
of their own; but they never presume to the same footing as the white
men.  Strange, however, talked as one gentleman to another.

There was nothing blatant in it; he had a well-bred man's care for the
prejudices of another.  Nevertheless, as they talked on Ambrose began
to feel a curious repugnance to his visitor, that made him wary of his
own speech.

"Too damn gentlemanly!" he said to himself.

"Why didn't you come in to see us to-day?" inquired Strange.  "We don't
expect a traveler to give us the go-by."

"Well," said Ambrose dryly, "I had an idea that my room would be
preferred to my company."

"Nonsense!" said Strange, laughing.  "We don't carry our business war
as far as that.  Why, we want to show you free-traders what a fine
place we have, so we can crow over you a little.  Anyway, you dined
with Mr. Gaviller, didn't you?"

"John Gaviller would never let himself off any of the duties of
hospitality," said Ambrose cautiously.

He was wondering how far Strange might be admitted to Gaviller's
confidence.  That he was being drawn out, Ambrose had no doubt at all,
but he did not know just to what end.

Strange launched into extensive praises of John Gaviller.  "I ought to
know," he said in conclusion.  "I've worked for him twenty-nine years.
He taught me all I know.  He's been a second father to me."

Ambrose felt as an honest man hearing an unnecessary and fulsome
panegyric must feel, slightly nauseated.  He said nothing.

Strange was quick to perceive the absence of enthusiasm.  He laughed
agreeably.  "I suppose I can hardly expect you to chime in with me," he
said.  "The old man is death on free-traders!"

"I have nothing against him," said Ambrose quickly.

"Of course I don't always agree with him on matters of policy," Strange
went on.  "Curious, isn't it, how a man's ruling characteristic begins
to get the better of him as he grows old.

"Mr. Gaviller is always just--but, well, a leetle hard.  He's pushing
the people a little too far lately.  I tell him so to his face--I
oppose him all I can.  But of course he's the boss."

Ambrose began to feel an obscure and discomforting indignation at his
visitor.  He wished he would go.

"You really must see our plant before you go back," said Strange; "the
model farm, the dairy herd, the flourmill, the sawmill.  Will you come
up to-morrow and let me take you about?"

His glibness had the effect of rendering Ambrose monosyllabic.  "No,"
he said.

"Oh, I say," said Strange, laughing, "what did you come to Fort
Enterprise for if you feel that way about us?"

Under his careless air Ambrose thought he distinguished a certain
eagerness to hear the answer.  So he said nothing.

"I'm afraid you and the old gentleman must have had words," Strange
went on, still smiling.  "Take it from me, his bark is worse than his
bite.  If he broke out at you, he's sorry for it now.  It takes half my
time to fix up his little differences with the people here."

He paused to give the other an opportunity to speak.  Ambrose remained
mum.

"The old man certainly has a rough side to his tongue," murmured
Strange insinuatingly.

"You're jumping to conclusions," said Ambrose coolly.  "John Gaviller
gave me no cause for offense.  I was well entertained at his house."

"U-m!" said Strange.  He seemed rather at a loss.  Presently he went on
to tell in a careless voice of the coyote hunts they had.  Afterward he
casually inquired how long Ambrose meant to stay in the neighborhood.

"I don't know," was the blunt answer.

"Well, really!" said Strange with his laugh--the sound of it was
becoming highly exasperating to Ambrose.  "I don't want to pry into
your affairs, but you must admit it looks queer for you to be camping
here on the edge of the company reservation without ever coming in."

Ambrose was wroth with himself for not playing a better part, but the
man affected him with such repugnance he could not bring himself to
dissimulate, "Sorry," he said stiffly.  "You'll have to make what you
can of it."

Strange got up.  His candid air now had a touch of manly pride.  "Oh, I
can take a hint!" he said.  "Hanged if I know what you've got against
me!"

"Nothing whatever," said Ambrose.

"I come to you in all friendliness--"

"Thought you said you stumbled on me," interrupted Ambrose.

"I mean of course when I saw you here I came in friendliness," Strange
explained with dignity.

"Well, go in friendliness, and no harm done on either side," said
Ambrose coolly.

For a brief instant Strange lost his benignant air.  "I've lived north
all my life," he said.  "And I never met with the like.  We have
different ideas about hospitality."

"Very likely," said Ambrose coolly.  "Good night!"

When his visitor rode away Ambrose turned with relief to his dog.  The
sight of Job's honest ugliness was good to him.

"He's a cur, Job!" he said strongly.  "A snake in the grass!  An oily
scoundrel!  I don't know how I know it, but I know it!  A square man
would have punched me the way I talked to him."

Job wagged his tail in entire approval of his master's judgment.
Ambrose turned in, feeling better for having spoken his mind.

Nevertheless, as he lay waiting for sleep it occurred to him that he
had been somewhat hasty.  After all, he had nothing to go on.  And,
supposing Strange were what he thought him, how foolish he, Ambrose,
had been to show his band.

If he had been craftier he might have learned things of value for him
to know.  Following this unsatisfactory train of thought, he fell
asleep.




CHAPTER XI.

ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND FAMILY.

Again Ambrose was awakened by a furious barking from Job.  It was even
earlier than on the preceding morning.  The sun was not up; the river
was like a gray ghost.

Ambrose, expecting Tole, looked for a dugout.  There was none in sight.
Job's agitated barks were addressed in the other direction.

Issuing from his tent, Ambrose beheld a quaint little man squatting on
top of the bank like an image.  He had an air of strange patience, as
if he had been waiting for hours, and expected to wait.

His brown mask of a face changed not a line at the sight of Ambrose.

"What do you want?" demanded the white man.

"Please, I want spik wit' you," the little man softly replied.

"Come down here then," said Ambrose.

The early caller looked at Job apprehensively.  Ambrose silenced the
dog with a command, and the man came slowly down the bank, cringing a
little.

The quaintness of aspect was largely due to the fact that he wore a
coat and trousers originally designed for a tall, stout man.  Ambrose
suspected he had a child to deal with until he saw the wrinkles and the
sophisticated eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I Alexander Selkirk, me," was the answer.

Ambrose could not but smile at the misapplication of the sonorous
Scotch name to such a manikin.

"You Ambrose Doane?" the other said solemnly.

"Everybody seems to know me," said Ambrose.

Alexander stared at him with a sullen, walled, speculative regard,
exactly, Ambrose thought, like a schoolboy facing an irate master, and
wondering where the blow will fall.

To carry out this effect he was holding something inside his voluminous
jacket, something that suggested contraband.

"What have you got there?" demanded Ambrose.

Without changing a muscle of his face, Alexander undid a button and
produced a gleaming black pelt.

Ambrose gasped.  It was a beautiful black fox.  Such a prize does not
come a trader's way once in three seasons.  The last black fox Minot &
Doane had secured brought twelve hundred dollars in London--and it was
not so fine a specimen as this.

Lustrous, silky, black as anthracite; every hair in place, and not a
white hair showing except the tuft at the end of the brush.

"Where did you get it?" Ambrose asked, amazed.

"I trap him, me, myself," said Alexander.

"When?"

"Las' Februar'."

"Are you offering it to me?" asked Ambrose, eying it desirously.

"'Ow much?" demanded Alexander, affecting a wall-eyed indifference.

Ambrose made a more careful examination.  There was no doubt of it; the
skin was perfect.  He thrilled at the idea of returning with such a
prize to his partner.  He made a rapid calculation.

"Five hundred and fifty cash," he said.  "Seven hundred fifty in trade."

A spark showed in Alexander's eyes.

"It is yours," he said.

"How can we make a trade?" asked Ambrose, perplexed.  "John Gaviller
would never honor any order of mine.  I have no goods here to give you
in trade."

"All right," said Alexander imperturbably.  "I go to Moultrie to get
goods."

"You, too," said Ambrose.  "I can't import you all."

"I got go Moultrie, me," said Alexander.  "I got trouble wit' Gaviller.
He starve me and my children.  They sick."

"Starve you!"

"Gaviller say give no more debt till I bring him my black fox,"
Alexander went on apathetically.  "Give no flour, no sugar, no meat, no
tea.  My brot'er feed us some.  Gaviller say to him better not.  So now
we have nothing.  We ongry."

This promised difficulties.  Ambrose frowned.  "Tell me the whole
story," he said.

The little man was eying the grub-box wolfishly.  Throwing back the
cover, Ambrose offered him a cold bannock.

"Here," he said.  "Eat and tell me."

Alexander without a word turned and scrambled up the bank and
disappeared, clutching the loaf to his breast.  The white man shouted
after him without effect.  He left the precious pelt behind him.

Ambrose shrugged philosophically.  "You never can tell."

Presently Alexander came back, his seamy brown face as blank as ever.
He vouchsafed no explanation.  Ambrose affected not to notice him.  He
had long since found it to be the best way of getting what he wanted.
The breed squatted on the stones, prepared to wait for the
judgment-day, it seemed.

After a while he said with the wary, defiant look of a child beggar who
expects to be refused, perhaps cuffed: "Give me 'not'er piece of bread."

Ambrose without a word broke his remaining bannock in two and gave him
half.  Alexander bolted it with incredible rapidity and sat as before,
waiting.

Ambrose, wearying of this, dropped the pelt on his knees, saying: "Take
your black fox.  I cannot trade with you."

It had the desired effect.  Alexander arose and put the skin inside the
tent.  "It is yours," he said.  "Give me tobacco."

Ambrose tossed him his pouch.

When the little man got his pipe going, squatting on his heels as
before, he told his tale.  "Me spik Angleys no good," he said,
fingering his Adam's apple, as if the defect was there.  "Las' winter I
ver' poor.  All tam moch sick in my stummick.  I catch him fine black
fox.  Wa!  I say.  I rich now.

"I tak' him John Gaviller.  Gaviller say: 'Three hunder twenty dollar
in trade.'  Wa!  That is not'in'.  I am sick to hear it.  Already I owe
that debt on the book.  Then I am mad.  Gaviller t'ink for because I
poor and sick I tak' little price.  I t'ink no!

"So I tak' her home.  The men they look at her.  Wa! they say, she is
_miwasan_--what you say, beauty?  They say, don' give Gaviller that
black fox, Sandy.  He got pay more.  So I keep her.  Gaviller laugh.
He say: 'You got give me that black fox soon.  I not pay so moch in
summer.'"

The apathetic way in which this was told affected Ambrose strongly.
His face reddened with indignation.  The story bore the hall-marks of
truth.

Certainly the man's hunger was not feigned; likewise his eagerness to
accept the moderate price Ambrose had offered him was significant.
Ambrose scowled in his perplexity.

"Hanged if I know what to do for you!" he said.  "I'll give you a
receipt for the skin.  I'll give you a little grub.  Then you go home
and stay until I can arrange something."

Alexander received this as if he had not heard it.

"You hear," said Ambrose.  "Is that all right?"

"I got go Moultrie," the little man said stolidly.

"You can't!" cried Ambrose.

Alexander merely sat like an image.

This was highly exasperating to the white man.  "You've got to go home,
I tell you," he cried.

"I not go home," the native said with strange apathy.  "Gaviller kill
me now."

"Nonsense!" cried Ambrose.  "He has got to respect the law."

Alexander was unmoved.  "He not give me no grub," he said.  "I starve
here."

This was unanswerable.  Ambrose, divided between annoyance and
compassion, fumed in silence.  He himself had only enough food for a
few days.  The breed wore him out with his stolidity.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" he asked at last.

"Give me little flour," said Alexander.  "I go to Moultrie."

"What will you do with your family?"

"I tak' them."

"How many?"

"My woman, my boy, my two girl, my baby."

"Good Lord!" cried Ambrose.  "Have you a boat?"

"_Non_!  There is timber down the river.  I mak' a raf, me."

"It would take you two weeks to float down," cried Ambrose.  "I have
only thirty pounds of flour."

Alexander shrugged.  "We ongry, anyway," he said.  "We lak be ongry on
the way."

Ambrose swore savagely under his breath.  This was nearly hopeless.  He
strode up and down, thrashing his brains for a solution.

Alexander, squatting on his heels, waited apathetically for the
verdict.  He had shifted his burden to the white man.

"Where is your family?" demanded Ambrose.

Alexander looked over his shoulder and spoke a word in Cree.  Instantly
four heads appeared over the edge of the bank.  Job barked once in
startled and indignant protest, and went to Ambrose's heels.

Ambrose could not forbear a start of laughter at the suddenness of the
apparition.  It was like the genii in a pantomime bobbing up through
the trapdoors.

"Come down," he said.

A distressful little procession faced him; they were gaunt, ragged,
appallingly dirty, and terrified almost into a state of idiocy.  First
came the mother, a travesty of womanhood, dehumanized except for her
tragic, terrified eyes.

A boy of sixteen followed her, ugly and misshapen as a gargoyle; he
carried the baby in a sling on his back.  Two timorous little girls
came last.

They lugged their pitiful belongings with them--a few rags of bedding
and clothes, some traps and snowshoes, and cooking utensils.  The
smaller girl bore a holy picture in a gaudy frame.

Ambrose's heart was wrung by the sight of so much misery.  He stormed
at Alexander.  "Good God!  What a state to get into.  What's the matter
with you that you can't keep them better than that?  You've no right to
marry and have children!"

Somehow they apprehended the compassion that animated his anger, and
were not afraid of him.  They lined up before him, mutely bespeaking
his assistance.

Their faith in his power to rescue them was implicit.  That was what
made it impossible for him to refuse.

"Here," he said roughly.  "You'll have to take my dugout.  I'll get
another from Grampierre.  You can make Moultrie in six days in that if
you work.  That'll give you five pounds of flour a day--enough to keep
you alive."

The word "dugout" galvanized Alexander into action.  Without a glance
in Ambrose's direction, he ran to the craft, and running it a little
way into the water rocked it from side to side to satisfy himself there
were no leaks.

Turning to his family he spoke a command in Cree, and forthwith they
began to pitch their bundles in.

Ambrose was accustomed to the thanklessness of the humbler natives.
They are like children, who look to the white man for everything, and
take what they can get as a matter of course.  Still he was a little
nonplused by the excessive precipitation of this family.

It occurred to him there was something more in their desperate
eagerness to get away than Alexander's tale explained.  But having
given his word, he could not take it back.

From father down to babe their faces expressed such relief and hope he
had not the heart to rebuke them.  Alexander came to him for the food,
and he handed over all he had.

"Wait!" he said.  "I will give you a letter for Peter Minot.  Lord!" he
inwardly added.  "Peter won't thank me for dumping this on him!"

On a leaf of his note-book he scribbled a few lines to his partner
explaining the situation.

"You understand," he said to Alexander, "out of your credit for the
black fox, John Gaviller must be paid what you owe him."

Alexander nodded indifferently, mad to get away.

As Alexander's squaw was about to get in the dugout she paused on the
stones and looked at Ambrose, her ugly, dark face working with emotion.
Her eyes were as piteous as a wounded animal's.  She flung up her hands
in a gesture expressing her powerlessness to speak.

It seemed there was some gratitude in the family.  Moved by a sudden
impulse she caught up Ambrose's hand and pressed it passionately to her
lips.  The white man fell back astonished and abashed.  Alexander paid
no attention at all.

In less than ten minutes after Ambrose had given them the dugout the
distressed family pushed off for a new land.  Father and son paddled as
if the devil were behind them.

"I wonder if I done the right thing?" mused Ambrose.


The Selkirks had not long disappeared down the river when Ambrose
received another visitor.  This was a surly native youth who, without
greeting, handed him a note, and rode back to the fort.  Ambrose's
heart beat high as he examined the superscription.

He did not need to be told who had written it.  But he was not prepared
for the contents:


DEAR:

Come to me at once.  Come directly to the house.  I am in great trouble.

COLINA.




CHAPTER XII.

GATHERING SHADOWS.

Ambrose, hastening back to Gaviller's house with a heart full of
anxiety, came upon Gordon Strange as he rounded the corner of the
company store.  The breed was at the door.  Evidently he harbored no
resentment, for his face lighted up at the sight of an old friend.

"Well!" he said.  "So you came to see us."

Ambrose felt the same unregenerate impulse to punch the smooth face.
However, with more circumspection than upon the previous occasion, he
returned a civil answer.

"Have you heard?" asked Strange, with an expression of serious concern.

Ambrose reflected that Strange probably knew a message had been sent.

"Heard what?" he asked non-committally.

"Mr. Gaviller was taken sick last night."

"What's the matter with him?" asked Ambrose quickly.

Strange shrugged.  "I do not know exactly.  The doctor has not come out
of the house since he was sent for.  A stroke, I fancy."

"I will go to the house and inquire," said Ambrose.

He proceeded, telling himself that Strange had not got any change out
of him this time.  He was relieved by the breed's news; he had feared
worse.

To be sure, it was terribly hard on Colina, but on his own account he
could not feel much pain of mind over a sickness of Gaviller's.

The half-breed girl who admitted him showed a scared yellow face.
Evidently the case was a serious one.  She ushered him into the
library.  The aspect, the very smell of the little room, brought back
the scene of two days before and set Ambrose's heart to beating.

Presently Colina came swiftly in, closing the door behind her.  She was
very pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.  She showed the
unnatural self-possession that a brave woman forces on herself in the
presence of a great emergency.  Her eyes were tragic.

She came straight to his arms.  She lowered her head and partly broke
down and wept a little.

"Ah, it's so good to have some one to lean on!" she murmured.

"Your father--what is the matter with him?" asked Ambrose.

The look in her eyes and her piteous shaking warned him to expect
something worse than the tale of an illness.

She lifted her white face.

"Father was shot last night," she said.

"Good God!" said Ambrose.  "By whom?"

"We do not know."

"He's not--he's not--" Ambrose's tongue balked at the dreadful word.

She shook her head.  "A dangerous wound, not necessarily fatal.  We
can't tell yet."

"You have no idea who did it?"

Colina schooled herself to give him a coherent account.  The sight of
her forced calmness, with th