eep this outfit going ourselves. There's things don't
need getting 'outside,' or likely we'll get a rush of whites that'll
leave us no better than a bum trading post of the past. It wouldn't be
good for us sitting around at this old post, not earning a grub stake,
while other folks were eating the--fruit we'd planted."

The girl had remained beside the window the whole time he was talking.
But her eyes were on him, and she was filled with wonder, and not
untouched by the feeling he was displaying. This was a side to his
character she had never witnessed before. It astounded. But it also
searched every generous impulse she possessed.

Her answer came on the instant.

"You don't need to say another word," she cried. "Nothing matters so I
can help mother out. I know there's secrets and things. I've every
reason to know there are. The good God knows I've reason enough. We
all have. What those secrets are I can only guess, and I don't want
even to do that--now. I hate them, and wish they'd never been."

"Your mother would never have been the wealthy woman she is without
them."

"No, and I'd be glad if that were so."

There was a world of passionate sincerity in the girl's denial. It
came straight from her heart. The loss of a father could find no
compensation in mere wealth. She understood the grasping nature of
this man. She understood that commercial success stood out before
everything in his desires.

Her moment of more kindly feeling towards him passed, and a breath of
winter chilled her warm young heart.

"Would you?"

The man's smile had returned once more. His questioning eyes had a
subtle irony in their burning depths.

"Sure. A thousand times I'd have us be just struggling traders as we
once were. Then I'd have my daddy with us, and mother would be the
happy woman I've always remembered her--before those secrets."

The man stirred with a movement almost of irritation.

"There's things I can't just see, child," he said, with a sort of
restrained impatience. "You're talking as if you guessed life could be
controlled at the will of us folk. You guess your father could have
escaped his fate, if he'd left our trade on Bell River alone. Maybe he
could, on the face of things. But could he have escaped acting the way
he acted? Could any of us? We all got just so much nature. That
nature isn't ours to cut about and alter into the shape we fancy. What
that nature says 'do,' we just go