and one of his fists was knotted.

"She wants me to publish a lot of these things," he went on. "She says
they are facts which would interest the whole world. Perhaps that is
so. Fur is gotten with hardship and danger and suffering. It may be
there are not many people who know that up here at the top end of the
world there is a country of forest and stream twenty times as large as
the State of Ohio, and in which the population per square mile is less
than that of the Great African Desert. And it's all because everyone
must live off the game. Everything goes back to that. Let something
happen, some little thing--a migration of game, a case of measles. The
Indians will die if there are not white men near to help them. That's
why Josephine makes me buy fur."

He pointed to the wall behind Philip. Over the door through which they
had just come hung a huge, old-fashioned flint-lock six feet in length.
There was something like the snarl of an animal in John Adare's voice
when he spoke again.

"That's the tool of the Northland," he said. "That is the only tool
John the Trapper knows, all he can know in a land where even trees are
stunted and there are no plows. His clothes and the blankets he weaves
of twisted strips of rabbit fur are adapted to the cold, he is a master
of the canoe and the most skilful trapper in the world, but in all else
he must be looked after like a child. He is still largely one of God's
men, this John the Trapper. He hasn't any measurements of value. He
doesn't know what the dollar means. He measures his wealth in 'skins,'
and when he trades the basis for whatever mental calculations he may
make is in the form of lead bullets taken from one tin-pan and
transferred to another. He doesn't keep track of figures. He trusts
alone to the white man's word, and only those who understand him, who
have dealt with him for years, can be trusted not to take advantage of
his faith. That's why I buy fur--to give John his chance to live."

Adare laughed, and ran a hand through his shaggy hair as if rousing
himself from thought of a relentless struggle. "But this isn't working
on my foxes, is it? On second thought I think I shall postpone that
until to-morrow, Philip. I have promised Miriam that I will have
Metoosin trim my hair and beard before dinner. Shall I send him to you?"

"A hair cut would be a treat," said Philip, rising. He was surprised at
the sudden change in the other's mood. But he was not sorry Adare