lso understood that Fisette was working
for Clark.

The half breed brought the side of his canoe delicately against the
sand and, stepping lightly out, began to unload, greeting Manson with a
low-voiced "Good morning." Ax, paddles, dunnage bag, shed tent, these
he laid neatly and, last of all, a small sack of samples, the weight of
which, however he disguised it, swelled the veins in his temples. He
was stooping to swing this on his shoulders when Manson spoke.

"Sit down a minute and have a smoke."

Fisette did not want to sit down. There was that in the sack and in
his brain which he greatly desired to evacuate in the proper place and
at the earliest possible moment. But a little reflection demonstrated
that undue haste would be suspicious. Inwardly disturbed at the sight
and manner of Manson, he laid the sack gently down. There came the
slightest creak of metallic fragments.

"Had a good trip?" hazarded the big man carelessly.

"Pretty fair."

"Pretty rough country up there?" Manson waved his arm northwest.

Fisette grunted. "About the same over there."

He glanced into the northeast.

"Been rooting about for over a year now, haven't you?"

The halfbreed grinned. "Since I was so high." He indicated a stature
of two feet.

"Come far this time?"

There was a little pause while Fisette sheared thin shavings of tobacco
from a dog-eared plug. He rolled them into a ball between his tawny
palms, thoughtfully unpicked the ball, re-rolled it more loosely,
abstracted a match from the inside band of his tattered hat and began
to suck wetly at a gurgling pipe. "What's that?" he said presently.

"I asked you did you come far?"

"Guess not so far as it seemed. Pretty bad bush."

Manson hesitated, then, in a flash, saw through the breed's assumption
of indifference. Clark had been looking for iron for more than a year.
All St. Marys knew that. Now, glancing covertly at the angular
projectings of the bulging sack, the constable jumped to his
conclusion. Fisette had found it and was on his way to report and
prove the discovery.

"I often wonder," he remarked casually, "what keeps you fellows going.
I never met a prospector yet who gave in that he was licked, and mighty
few of them found anything. They always claim they would have had it
if they could have stayed out a bit longer. Take iron, for instance.
Fellows have gone out after iron for years right from here and they all
thought they had it,