factor's man over t' th' post, an' th' Blacks
be great friends of ours. Bessie's but a young maid--a year younger'n
Bob. You'll see th' Blacks when you goes over t' th' post with Bob."

"I'm immensely interested in your Indian friends," said Shad.
"Manikawan was a little brick, and the Nascaupees bully good fellows.
Will there be a chance of my meeting them?"

"No, they camps on lakes down t' th' n'uth'ard in summer," Bob
explained. "If you was stayin' th' winter, now, you'd see un."

"I'm almost persuaded to remain on the trails with you all winter, and
see something of the life of real, uncivilised Indians," asserted
Shad. "I would stay if it were not for college."

"'Twould be fine t' have you, now!" exclaimed Bob enthusiastically.
"But," he added doubtfully, "I'm fearin' you'd find th' winter
wonderful cold, an' th' tilts lonesome places t' stop in, not bein'
used to un."

"An' your mother would be worryin' about you; now, wouldn't she?"
suggested Mrs. Gray.

"My mother died when I was a little boy, and Father died two years
ago," said Shad. "I have one sister, but she learned long ago that I
could take care of myself."

"Is she a little sister?" asked Emily.

"Oh, no," said Shad, "she's a big, married sister, and has a little
girl of her own nearly as old as you are."

"'Twould be grand t' have you stay," Bob again suggested.

"Thank you, and it would be grand to stay, I'm sure, but," said Shad
regretfully, "I can't do it. I must go back to college."

At length Bob announced one day that his outfit was completed and that
all was in readiness, save a few incidentals to be purchased at the
Hudson's Bay Company's trading post, fifteen miles across the bay.
Shad, too, found it necessary to make some purchases preparatory to
his journey to the interior, and the following morning the two sailed
away in Bob's dory.

Tom Black, the post servant, welcomed them as they stepped ashore on
the sandy beach below the post, and with him was Bob's old friend,
Douglas Campbell, who stated that he had arrived at the post an hour
earlier.

"I'm glad you come over, Bob," said he, as the four walked up toward
Black's cabin. "When I comes t' th' post this mornin', I were thinkin'
t' go back t' Kenemish by way of Wolf Bight t' have a talk with you,
but your comin' saves me th' cruise. Set down here, now, a bit, till
dinner's ready. I wants t' hear your plans for th' trails."

And while Shad was carried off by Tom to mee