On the day after the big storm old Missinabbee returned to the southward, and the following day Wentworth arrived at the post, cursing his guide, and the storm, and the snow that lay deep in the forest. The half-breed refused to stop over and rest, but accepted his pay and turned his dogs on the back-trail. And as Murchison accepted McNabb's letter of introduction from Wentworth's hand in the door of the post trading room, his eyes followed the retreating form of the guide. For he had caught a malevolent gleam of hate that flashed from the narrowed black eyes as the man had accepted his pay.

"Ye have not seen the last of yon," he said, turning to Wentworth with a nod of his head toward the breed. "Alex Thumb is counted a bad man in the North. I would not rest so easy, an' he was camped on my trail."

Wentworth scowled. "Worthless devil! Kicked on my bringing my trunk. Wanted me to transfer my stuff into duffle bags and carry a pack to ease up on his dogs; and then to top it off with, he wasn't going to let me ride on the sled. But I showed him who was boss. I hired the outfit and believe me, I rode whenever I felt like it. He may have you fellows up here bluffed, but not me."

"Well, 'tis none of my business. I was only givin' ye a friendly warnin'. Come on now till I get my glasses on, an' we'll see what ye've got here."

Presently he folded and returned the brief note. "An' now what can I do for ye? Will ye be makin' your headquarters here, or will ye have a camp of your own down on the river?"

"I think I'll stay here if there's room. When I'm exploring the river
I can take a light outfit along."

"There's plenty of room. There's an empty cabin beside the storehouse, an' I'll have a stove set up, an' your things moved in. Ye'll take your meals with me. There's only a couple of Company Injuns, an' my clerk." Murchison paused. "Sven!" he called. "Sven Larson! Where are ye? Come down out of that fur loft! I've a job for ye."

Slow, heavy footsteps sounded upon the floor above, and a moment later two feet appeared upon the ladder, and very deliberately the clerk negotiated the descent.

"Sven Larson, this is Mr. Wentworth. He's from the States, an' he's goin' to live in the cabin. Take Wawake an' Joe Irish an' set up a stove in there, an' move the stuff in that lays outside."

Hedin acknowledged the introduction with a solemn bob of the head, and as he stared straight into Wentworth's face he blinked owlishly.

"This stove?" he asked, indicating the huge cannon stove in which the fire roared noisily.

"No! No! Ye numbskull! One of them Yukon stoves. An' be quick about it."

"What stuff?"

"The stuff that lays outside the door—Wentworth's stuff, of course!'

"In the cabin?"

"Yes, in the cabin!" cried the factor impatiently. "Ye didn't think ye was to put it in the stove, did ye?"

Hedin moved slowly away in search of the Company Indians, and Wentworth laughed. "Hasn't got quite all his buttons, has he?" he inquired. "I should say the Company had treated you shabbily in the matter of a clerk."

"Well, I don't know," replied Murchison. "I could have had worse. 'Tis not to be gainsaid that he's slow an' heavy of wit in the matter of most things, but the lad knows fur. More than forty years I've handled fur, an' yet to-day the striplin' knows more about fur, an' the value of fur, than I ever will know. An' then there's the close-mouthedness of him. Ye tell him a thing, an' caution him to say naught about it, an' no bribe nor threat could drag a word of it from his lips. So, ye see, for the job he's got, I could scarce hope for better."

"I presume he knows only raw furs," said Wentworth casually. "He could, of course, have no knowledge of the finished product."

"An' there ye're wrong. Of his early life I know nothing except that he's a foreigner, raised in the fur trade. He can spot topped or pointed furs as far as he can see them, an' as for appraisin' them, he can tell almost to a dollar the value of any piece ye could show him. But——"

The door opened and Murchison turned to greet a newcomer. "Hello, Downey!" he called. "'Tis a long time since ye've favored Gods Lake with a visit. Come up to the stove, lad, an' meet Mr. Wentworth.

"Mr. Wentworth, this is Corporal Downey, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police." At the word police Wentworth started ever so slightly, but caught himself on the instant. He searched the keen gray eyes of the officer as he extended his hand, but if Downey noticed the momentary trepidation he gave no sign.

"So you're Wentworth," he remarked casually, as he swung the light pack from his shoulders.

"Captain Wentworth."

"Oh," Downey accorded him a slanting glance, and entered into conversation with Murchison.

"You knew my name, do you want to see me?" Wentworth interrupted after a wait of several minutes.

"No, not in particular. Only if I was you I'd beware of a dark-haired man, as the fortune-tellers say."

"What do you mean?"

"I met Alex Thumb a piece back on the trail."

"Well, what of it? What has that got to do with me?"

"I don't know. He mentioned your name, that's all. An' I just kind of surmised from the way he done it that you an' him didn't part the best of friends."

"I hired him for a guide, and he undertook to give me my orders on the trail. But I soon showed him where he stood."

Downey nodded. "He's counted bad medicine up here."

"I guess he won't bother me any; I'm here to stay."

"No, he won't be apt to bother you any. Probably kill you, though, if you don't keep your eyes open. But don't worry about that, because if he does I'll get him."

"He can't bluff me. I served with the engineers in Russia."

"You'll be servin' with the devils in hell, too, if you don't quit makin' enemies of men like Alex Thumb."

"They didn't use up all the brains, when they made the Mounted,
Captain."

"Corporal'll do me," corrected the officer. "I wasn't with the engineers—in Russia. I was only in the trenches—in France."

As Downey slung his pack to his shoulders the following morning he stepped close to Murchison. The trading room was deserted save for those two, but the officer lowered his voice. "Wentworth ain't the only one around here that needs watchin'," he said warningly.

"What do ye mean?"

"I mean your clerk ain't the fool he lets on he is. That room you put me in was next to his. The chinkin's fallen out in spots, an' his light was lit late, so I just laid in my bunk an' glued my eye to the crack. He was readin'—an' enjoyin' what he read. He'd lay down the book now an' then an' light a good briar pipe. I'd get a good look into his face then, an' he's no more a fool than you or I. He's damned smart lookin'. An' the books he had laid out on the table wasn't books a fool would be readin'. He was careful to hide 'em away when he rolled in—an' he cleaned his fingernails with a white handled dingus, an' brushed his teeth, an' put the tools back in a black leather case that had silver trimmin's. Believe me, there's somethin' comin' off here between now an' summer, an' I'm goin' to ask for the detail!"

Murchison laughed. "Come on back, Downey, and you'll see the fun. An' I ain't so sure you won't be needed in your official capacity. But don't bother your head over Sven Larson. Remember this: it takes a smart man to play the fool, an' play it right. That's why John McNabb sent him up here. An' his name ain't Larson; it's Hedin. He's John's right-hand man—an' if I mistake not someday he'll be his son-in-law."

"Oh, I'll be back all right," grinned Downey. "I've got a hunch that maybe I'll be needed."

"Ye wouldn't be sorry to have to arrest Wentworth for some kind of thievery, would ye, Downey? I could see ye distrusted him from the moment ye laid eyes on him."

"U-m-m-m," answered Downey. "I was thinkin' more of, maybe, bringin' in Alex Thumb—for murder."

A week later Murchison accompanied Wentworth upon a ten-day trip, during the course of which they visited the proposed mill site, the McNabb holdings, and a great part of the available pulp-wood territory adjoining. With Murchison's help, Wentworth sketched a map of the district that showed with workable accuracy the location of lakes and streams, together with the location of Government and Hudson's Bay Company lands. This done, he secured an Indian guide and proceeded to lay out and blaze the route of the wagon road to the railway.

By the middle of May the snow had nearly disappeared, and the first of June saw the rivers running free of ice. It was then that Wentworth "borrowed" Sven Larson from the factor and dropped down Gods River in a canoe to its confluence with the Shamattawa. Camp was made at the head of the rapids. Thereafter for five days Hedin worked under Wentworth's direction, while the engineer ran his levels and established his contour. In the evenings as they sat by the campfire smoking, Hedin preserved the same stolid silence that he had studiously observed since the coming of Wentworth.

"Murchison says you know all about fur," Wentworth suggested one evening. "And the finished fur? Do you know that, too—about, well, for instance kolinsky, and nutria, and Russian sable?"

"Kolinsky and nutria are no good. We do not have them here. Russian sable, and sea otter, and black fox, they are the best furs in the world. We do not have them here, either, except once in a while a black, or a silver fox."

"A coat of Russian sable would be very valuable?"

"Yes. Real Russian sable, dark, and well silvered, would be very valuable."

"How much would one be worth?"

"Nobody can tell unless they can see it. It is all in the matching."

For a full minute Wentworth studied the face across the little fire, the face with the unkempt beard, and the far-off, pondering eyes.

"I have a Russian sable coat," ventured Wentworth.

The factor's clerk gazed at him with unwinking blue eyes, and the head wagged slowly. "No. Russian sable is woman's fur. They do not make men's coats of Russian sable."

"But this is a woman's coat," explained Wentworth. "I got it in Russia when I was in the Army. She was a Russian princess and I helped her escape from the country at great risk to myself. It was in the winter, in the dead of night, and a terrible blizzard was raging. When she safely crossed the border she thanked me with tears in her eyes and begged me to take her coat in payment, as she had no money. I refused, but she tossed it into my arms, and disappeared into the night."

"Maybe she died in the storm without her coat."

"Why, no—you see, she had—that is, I had arranged for a car—a sleigh, I mean, to meet her there with plenty of robes. But what I want to get at, is this. If I show you this coat will you promise not to say a word to Murchison about it? I do not want him to know I have it. He would want to buy it, and he is my friend and I do not want to refuse him. But I do not want to sell the coat, because sometime I am going to return it to its original owner. But first I should like you to tell me what it is worth. Can you tell me that? And can you remember never to tell Murchison that I have the coat?"

Hedin nodded. "Yes, I can tell you how much the coat is worth when I see it and feel it. And I will not tell Murchison. That is why I am smart, and others are foolish. Because they tell me what they know, and I listen, and pretty soon I know that, too. But I do not tell what I know, and they cannot listen. So I know what they know, and they do not know what I know, and that is why I am wise and they don't know hardly anything at all."

"Everything coming in, and nothing going out," laughed Wentworth. "That's right, Sven; you've got the system. We will finish here to-morrow, and then we will return to the post, and you can come to my cabin, and I'll show you the fur."