ome would know nothing
of it until he told them himself and would have no unusual cause for
worry in the meantime. He felt a considerable sense of importance,
too, at the confidence Mr. MacPherson reposed in him in suggesting
that he might place him in charge of an important mail. And what a
tale he would have to tell! Bessie would think him quite a hero. After
all it had turned out well. He had caught a silver fox and all the
other fur--quite enough, he was sure, to send Emily to the hospital.
God had been very good to him and he cast his eyes to heaven and
breathed a little prayer of thanksgiving.

Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn had been quite forgotten by Bob in the
excitement of the arrival at the Fort. Now he saw them and the two
other Indians coming over from the cabin to which they had gone when
he left them to meet Mr. MacPherson, and he hurried down to meet them
and tell them that he had found a way to reach home. It was plain that
they did not approve of the turn matters had taken, for they only
grunted and said nothing.

They turned to a building where the door stood open and Bob
accompanied them and entered with them. This was the Post shop, and a
young man, whom Bob had not seen before, presumably "Lord Salisbury,"
the chief clerk of whom the talkative "Secretary Bayard" had spoken,
was behind the counter attending to the wants of an Eskimo and his
wife, the latter with a black-eyed, round-faced baby which sat
contentedly in her hood sucking a stick of black tobacco. The clerk
spoke to the Indians in their language, said "good day" to Bob in
English, and then continued his dickering in the Eskimo language with
his customers, who had deposited before them on the counter a number
of arctic fox pelts.

When the clerk had finished with the Eskimos he turned to the Indians
in a very businesslike way and asked to see the furs they had brought.
They produced some marten skins which, after a great deal of
wrangling, were bartered for tobacco, tea, powder, shot, bullets, gun
caps, beads, three-cornered needles and a few trinkets. Much time was
consumed in this, for the Indians insisted upon handling and
discussing at length each individual article purchased.

Bob had brought with him the marten skins that he had trapped during
his stay with the Indians and he exchanged them for a red shawl and a
little box of beads for Manikawan, a trinket for the old woman,
Manikawan's mother, and a small gift each for Sishetaku