m'eres you are jest wonderin'
what brought me along. Anyway, I come with a red-hot purpose. Gee! but
it's blowin'. I ain't like to forget this storm." Gagnon shuddered as he
thought of his narrow escape.

"Say," he went on, with an effort at playfulness. "You two boys are
pretty deep--pretty deep." He repeated himself reflectively. "An' you
seem so easy and free, too. I do allow I'd never 'a' thought it. Ha,
ha!"

He turned a smiling face upon his two friends and looked quizzically
from one to the other. His look was open, but behind it shone something
else. There was a hungriness in his sharp, black eyes which would have
been observed by any one other than these two backwoodsmen.

"You allus was a bit fancy in your way o' speakin', Victor," observed
Nick, responding to the man's grin. "Hit the main trail, man. We ain't
good at guessin'."

Ralph had looked steadily at the trader while he was speaking; now he
turned slowly and poured out three pannikins of coffee. During the
operation he turned his visitor's words over in his mind and something
of their meaning came to him. He passed a tin to each of the others and
sipped meditatively from his own, while his eyes became fixed upon the
face of the half-breed.

"Ther' was some fine pelts in that last parcel o' furs you brought
along," continued Victor. "Three black foxes. But your skins is always
the best I get."

Ralph nodded over his coffee, whilst he added his other hand to the
support of the tin. Nick watched his brother a little anxiously. He,
too, felt uneasy.

"It's cur'us that you git more o' them black pelts around here than
anybody else higher up north. You're a sight better hunters than any
durned neche on the Peace River. An' them hides is worth more'n five
times their weight in gold. You're makin' a pile o' bills. Say, you keep
them black pelts snug away wi' other stuff o' value."

Gagnon paused and took a deep draught at his coffee.

"Say," he went on, with a knowing smile. "I guess them black foxes lived
in a gold mine--"

He broke off and watched the effect of his words. The others kept
silence, only their eyes betrayed them. The smoke curled slowly up from
their pipes and hung in a cloud about the creaking roof. The fire burned
fiercely in the stove, and with every rush of wind outside there came a
corresponding roar of flame up the stovepipe.

"Maybe you take my meanin'," said the Breed, assured that his words had
struck home. "Them black f