st. Here the free trader had built a fair-sized structure of
logs with goods piled in the front and the rearward end given over to a
stove, a table, and two bunks. In this place Thompson and Joe Lamont
plied their traffic. MacLeod sent them Indian and half-breed trappers
bearing orders for so much flour, so much tea, so many traps, so much
powder and ball and percussion caps for their nigh obsolete guns. They
took their "debt" and departed into the wilderness, to repay in the
spring with furs.

So, by degrees, the free-trader's stock approached depletion, until
there remained no more than two good dog teams could haul. With that on
sleds, and a few bundles of furs traded in by trappers whose lines
radiated from the Porcupine, Thompson and Joe Lamont came back to Fort
Pachugan.

The factor seemed well pleased with the undertaking. He checked up the
goods and opined that the deal would show a rare profit for the Company.

"Ye have a hundred an' twenty-six dollars due, over an' above a charge
or two against ye," he said to Thompson when they went over the
accounts. "How will ye have it? In cash? If ye purpose to winter at Lone
Moose a credit maybe'll serve as well. Or, if ye go out, ye can have a
cheque on the Company at Edmonton."

"Give me the hundred in cash," Thompson decided. "I'll take the twenty
odd in grub. I'm going to Lone Moose, but I don't know how long I'll
stay there. There's some stuff of mine there that I want to get. After
that--I'm a bit undecided."

In those long nights at the Porcupine he had done a good deal of
pondering over his next move. He had not yet come to a fixed decision.
In a general way he knew that he was going out into the world from
whence he had come, with an altogether different point of view, to work
out his future along altogether different lines. But he had not made up
his mind to do this at once. He was clearly conscious of one imperative
craving. That was for a sight of Sophie Carr and a chance to talk to her
again. His heart quickened when he thought of their parting. He knew she
was anything but indifferent. He was not an egotist, but he knew she
harbored a feeling akin to his own, and he built hopes on that, despite
her blunt refusal, the logical reasons she had set forth. He hoped
again. He saw himself in the way of becoming competent--as the North,
which is a keen judge, appraises competence. He had chucked some of his
illusions about relative values. He conceived that in