ying, she took her hand and stroked it, and said: "Mother,
dear, don't be cryin' now. 'Tis not so bad. If God wants that I get
well He'll make me well. An' I wants to stay home with you an' see
you an' father an' Bob, an' I'd be _dreadful_ homesick to go off so
far."

Emily and Bob had always been great chums and the blow to him seemed
almost more than he could bear. His heart lay in his bosom like a
stone. At first he could not think, but finally he found himself
repeating what the doctor had said about silver foxes,--"five hundred
dollars cash." This was more money than he could imagine, but he knew
it was a great deal. The company gave sixty dollars _in trade_ for the
finest silver foxes. That was supposed a liberal price--but five
hundred dollars in _cash_!

He looked longingly towards the blue hills that held their heads
against the distant sky line. Behind those hills was a great
wilderness rich in foxes and martens--but no man of the coast had ever
dared to venture far within it. It was the land of the dreaded
Nascaupees, the savage red men of the North, who it was said would
torture to a horrible death any who came upon their domain.

The Mountaineer Indians who visited the bay regularly and camped in
summer near the post, told many tales of the treachery of their
northern neighbours, and warned the trappers that they had already
blazed their trails as far inland as it was safe for them to go. Any
hunter encroaching upon the Nascaupee territory, they insisted, would
surely be slaughtered.

Bob had often heard this warning, and did not forget it now; but in
spite of it he felt that circumstances demanded risks, and for Emily's
sake he was willing to take them. If he could only get traps, _he_
would make the venture, with his parents' consent, and blaze a new
trail there, for it would be sure to yield a rich reward. But to get
traps needed money or credit, and he had neither.

Then he remembered that Douglas Campbell had said one day that he
would not go to the hills again if he could get a hunter to take the
Big Hill trail to hunt on shares. That was an inspiration. He would
ask Douglas to let him hunt it on the usual basis--two-thirds of the
fur caught to belong to the hunter and one-third to the owner. With
this thought Bob's spirits rose.

"'Twill be fine--'twill be a grand chance," said he to himself, "an
Douglas lets me hunt un, an father lets me go."

He decided to speak to Douglas first, for if Do