ere and there in arm-locked groups of a dozen, smiling,
whispering among themselves, ready to collapse toward a common
centre of giggles if addressed by one of the numerous
woods-dandies. Indian men stalked singly, indifferent, stolid.
Indian children of all sizes and degrees of nakedness darted back
and forth, playing strange games. The sound of many voices rose
across the air.

Once the voices moderated, when McDonald, the Chief Trader, walked
rapidly from the barracks building to the trading store; once they
died entirely into a hush of respect, when Galen Albret himself
appeared on the broad veranda of the factory. He stood for a
moment--bulked broad and black against the whitewash--his hands
clasped behind him, gazing abstractedly toward the distant bay.
Then he turned into the house to some mysterious and weighty
business of his own. The hubbub at once broke out again.

Now about the mouth of the long picketed lane leading to the
massive trading store gathered a silent group, bearing packs.
These were Indians from the more immediate vicinity, desirous of
trading their skins. After a moment McDonald appeared in the
doorway, a hundred feet away, and raised his hand. Two of the
savages, and two only, trotted down the narrow picket lane, their
packs on their shoulders.

McDonald ushered them into a big square room, where the bales were
undone and spread abroad. Deftly, silently the Trader sorted the
furs, placing to one side or the other the "primes," "seconds," and
"thirds" of each species. For a moment he calculated. Then he
stepped to a post whereon hung long strings of pierced wooden
counters, worn smooth by use. Swiftly he told the strings over.
To one of the Indians he gave one with these words:

"Mu-hi-kun, my brother, here be pelts to the value of two hundred
'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of two hundred 'castors,' and in
addition I give my brother one fathom of tobacco."

The Indian calculated rapidly, his eye abstracted. He had known
exactly the value of his catch, and what he would receive for it in
"castors," but had hoped for a larger "present," by which the
premium on the standard price is measured.

"Ah hah," he exclaimed, finally, and stepped to one side.

"Sak-we-su, my brother," went on McDonald, "here be pelts to the
value of three hundred 'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of three
hundred 'castors,' and because you have brought so fine a skin of
the otter, behold also a fath