ay.'
Gaviller say: 'You got to pay.' He put it on the book against Gagnon."

Tole related other incidents of a like character, Ambrose listened with
ever mounting indignation. There could be no mistaking the truthful
ring of the simple details.

Not only was Ambrose's sense of humanity up in arms, but the trader in
him was angered that a competitor should profit by such unfair means.
With a list of grievances on one side and unqualified sympathy on the
other, the two progressed in friendship.

They breakfasted together, Job making a third. Ambrose found himself
more and more strongly drawn to the young fellow. He was reminded that
he had no friend of his own age in the country. Tole, he said to
himself, was whiter than many a white man he had known.

Job, who as a rule drew the colorline sharply, was polite to Tole. Job
was pleased because Tole ignored him. Uninvited overtures from
strangers made Job self-conscious.

Tole and Ambrose, being young, drifted away from serious business after
a while. They discussed sport. Tole lost some of his gravity in
talking about hunting the moose.

Not until Tole was on the point of embarking did the real object of his
visit transpire. "My father say he want you come to his house," he
said diffidently.

"Sure I will," said Ambrose.

Tole lingered by his dugout, affecting to test the elasticity of his
paddle on the stones. He glanced at Ambrose with a speculative eye.

"Maybe you and Peter Minot open a store across the river and trade with
us," he suggested with a casual air.

Ambrose was staggered by the possibilities it opened up. He knew the
idea was already in Peter's mind. What if he, Ambrose, should be
chosen to carry it out? He sparred for wind.

"I don't know," he said warily. "There is much to be considered. I
will talk with your father."

Tole nodded and pushed off.

CHAPTER IX.

LOVERS.

Ambrose and Colina had had no opportunity the night before to arrange
for another meeting. Ambrose stuck close to his camp, feeling somehow
that the next move should come from her.

It was not that he had been unduly alarmed by her father's threat,
though he had a young man's healthy horror of being humiliated in the
beloved one's presence.

But the real reason that kept him inactive was an instinctive
compunction against embroiling Colina with her father. She had only
known him, Ambrose, a day; she should have a chance to make sure of her
own