e one is going to get
hurt!"

'Merican Joe looked puzzled. "W'at you care 'bout dat? W'at dat mak' you
mad som' wan sell Injun de _hooch_?"

"What do _I_ care! I care because it's a dirty, low-lived piece of work!
These Injuns need every bit of fur they can trap to buy grub and
clothes with. When they get _hooch_, they pay a big price--and they pay
it in grub and clothes that their women and children need!"

'Merican Joe shrugged philosophically, and at that moment another Indian
stepped into the firelight. It was the man who had insisted upon their
staying with him, and who Connie remembered had spoken a few words of
English.

"You looking for _hooch_, too?" asked the boy.

The Indian shook his head vigorously. "No. _Hooch_ bad. Mak' Injun bad.
No good!"

Connie shoved the teapot into the coals and motioned the man to be
seated, and there beside the little fire, over many cups of strong tea,
the boy and 'Merican Joe, by dint of much questioning and much sign talk
to help out the little English and the few words of jargon the man knew,
succeeded finally in learning the meaning of the white man's trail in
the snow. They learned that the Indians were Dog Ribs who had drifted
from the Blackwater country and settled in their present location last
fall because two of their number had wintered there the previous year
and had found the trapping good, and the supply of fish and rabbits
inexhaustible. They had done well with their traps, but they had killed
very few caribou during the winter, and the current of the river had
taken many of their nets and swept them away under the ice. The rabbits
were not as plentiful as they had been earlier in the fall, and there
was much hunger in the camp.

They traded as usual, and had gotten "debt" at Fort Norman last summer
before they moved their camp. Later in the summer two men had come along
in a canoe and told them that they would come back before the mid-winter
trading. They said they would sell goods much cheaper than the Hudson's
Bay Company, or the Northern Trading Company, and that they would also
have some _hooch_--which cannot be obtained from the big companies.

Yesterday one of these men came into the camp. He had a few bottles of
_hooch_ which he traded for some very good fox skins, and promised to
return in six days with the other man and two sled loads of goods. He
told them that they did not have to pay their debt to the companies at
Fort Norman because everythi