going crazy. I don't know what is the
matter with me!"

"Twenty-five years old," murmured Peter; "in the pink of condition!
I'm telling you what's the matter with you. It's a plain case of June
fever. Ask any of the fellows up here."

"What am I going to do?" said Ambrose. "As it is, I work till I'm
ready to drop."

"I mind when I had it," said Peter, "I came to a camp of French
half-breeds on Musquasepi, and I saw Eva Lajeunesse for the first time.
It was like a blow between the eyes. You do not know what she looked
like then. I didn't think about it this way or that; I just up and
married her. I was glad to get her!

"Man to man I'll not deny I ain't been sorry sometimes," he went on;
"who ain't, sometimes? But, on the whole, after all these years, how
could I have done any better? She's good enough for me. A man worries
about his children sometimes; but I guess if they go straight there's a
place for them, though they are dusky. Eva, she has her bad points,
but she's been real good to me. How can I be but grateful!"

This was a rare and unusual confidence for Peter to offer his young
partner. Ambrose, flattered and embarrassed, did not know what to say,
and said nothing.

He was right, for if he had referred to it, Peter would have been
obliged to turn it into a joke. As it was, they smoked on in
understanding silence. Finally Peter went on:

"You see, I gave right in. You're different; you want to fight the
thing. Blest if I know what to tell you."

"Eva and I don't get on very well," said Ambrose shamefacedly. "She
doesn't like me around the house. But I respect her. You know that."

"Sure," said Peter.

"I couldn't do it, Peter," Ambrose went on after a while with seeming
irrelevance--howsoever Peter understood. "God knows it's not because I
think myself any better than anybody else, or because I think a man
does for himself by marrying a--by marrying up here. But I just
couldn't do it, that's all."

"No offense," said Peter. "Every man must chop his own trail. I won't
say but what you're right. But what are you going to do? A man can't
live and die alone."

"I don't know," said Ambrose.

"Tell you what," said Peter; "you take the furs out on the steamboat."

"I won't," said Ambrose quickly. "I went out last year. It's your
turn."

"But I'm contented here," said Peter.

Ambrose shook his head. "It wouldn't do me any real good," he said.
"It makes it worse after.