“You’d find out that they have distinct individual characteristics,” Barreau replied, “if you were with them long. I know most of these fellows well enough to pick them out of a crowd. In fact, a good many of them won’t trade except with me—which is one strong hold I have over my slippery partner. And so far as trusting them, an Indian’s word is good as gold. For every dollar’s worth of stuff we let them have this fall they’ll bring ten dollars’ worth of pelts next spring—unless it is an extraordinary winter. Anyway, we don’t stand to lose a great deal on what we trust them for. Where we will make money will be in the spring trade. They’ll have plenty of furs left after their debt is paid, and they’ll want guns and more powder, flour and tea for the summer, tobacco, and clothes and gew-gaws for the women and pappooses. If the winter is normal we’re going to have a big trade; bigger even than I thought. I wouldn’t mind,” he concluded, with a short laugh, “if Montell had to go clear to Benton, and got snowed in there. That would eliminate one dangerous factor. But that’s too much to hope for.” “It’s a long trip,” I reflected. “He can’t get to the Missouri in time to send his daughter down on the last boat, even. The river will freeze any day now. Benton would be a dreary place for her to stay alone, I should think. He may stay there with her.” “Not likely,” Barreau contended. “As it happens, she knows one or two rather nice families who are wintering at Benton, and she’ll be apt to stay with them. He has been altogether too keen to have his finger in this winter’s pie—when it wasn’t needed there. No, the old fox has something up his sleeve—something that he’s been leading up to ever since we left Benton. He’ll be back, if he has to come on his hands and knees.” Barreau was right. Montell did come back, and the date of his return was only something more than forty-eight hours from the time of that conversation. We were stretched upon our respective bunks, I listening to Barreau’s talk of long-dead traders who had undertaken to buck the Hudson’s Bay Company, when some one tapped on the door; and at Barreau’s laconic “come in,” who but Montell himself should enter! He shut the door carefully behind him, and waddled to a seat. Barreau raised on one elbow. “You!” he said sharply. “Back here already? What has happened now?” Montell took off his hat and threw it petulantly on the floor. The expression on his face was sour as curdled milk. “We couldn’t make it, that’s all,” he growled. “I guess the H. B. C.’s gettin’ busy all at once. Anyhow, we got headed off.” “How?” Barreau demanded. Montell flung out his hands expressively. “Easiest way in the world,” he sputtered wrathfully. “Some feller with a good eye just trailed us up, and killed off our stock—shot ’em one by one. Finally we was afoot. So we turned back. Couldn’t walk clear to MacLeod. Damn ’em, anyway!” “No one hurt?” Barreau asked quietly.