etween puffs of his pipe, as
at the end of a day he and Hedin sat in the doorway of the trading room
and watched the yellow flames from a hundred campfires stab the black
darkness of the night, and send wavering shadows playing in grotesque
patterns upon the walls of the tepees. The harsh din of the encampment
all but drowned the factor's words, and Hedin smiled.

"Do not understand what?" he asked.

"'Tis yourself I do not understand. Ye've never handled raw fur, yet
in the handling of thirty packs I have not changed the rating of a
skin. By your own word, 'tis your first venture into the North, yet
since the day of your coming ye have behaved like a man of the North.
The Indians distrust a new-comer. They are slow to place confidence in
any white man. An' yet, they have accepted your judgment of fur
without question. An' a good half of them ye call by name. 'Tis a
combination unheard of, an' to be believed only when one sees it."

"And yet it is very simple," explained Hedin. "For years I have
studied fur--finished fur--and in the study I have read everything I
could find about fur, from the habits of the animals up through their
trapping, and the handling of the skins in every step of their
preparation. And as for the Indians themselves, I have merely moved
about among them and got acquainted, as I would do in a city of white
men."

Murchison interrupted him with a snort. "An' a thousand would try it,
an' one succeed! 'Tis no explanation ye've given at all. Ye cannot
explain it. 'Tis a something ye have that's bred in the bone. Ye're a
born man of the North--an' God pity ye for the job ye've got! Cooped
up in a store all day with the fanfare of a city dingin' your ears from
dawn till midnight, an' beyond! An' what's the good of it? When ye
might be living up here in the land that still lays as God made it.
The Company can use men like you. You could have a post of your own in
a year's time."

For many minutes Hedin puffed at his pipe. "I am glad to hear that,"
he said at length, "for I am not going back."

"Not going back!" cried Murchison. "D'ye mean it? An' what about that
lass of John McNabb's?"

"That lass of John McNabb's has chosen another," answered Hedin in a
dull tone.

It was the seventh of June when Wentworth had dispatched the Indian
with the reports to McNabb and to Orcutt, and thereafter he settled
himself for three weeks of waiting. The activity at the post bored and
an