ng hands made to do
things with into gloves that weren't. Or maybe reckoning up which beau
could hand me the best time before I got too old to count. It isn't that
way here. The north teaches you to think and act right, and you don't
have to worry that the girl next door's wearing a later mode in shirt
waists than you. No. Man or woman, we've got to make good or go under.
We're all here for that, only some of us don't know it. I'm kind of glad
I've learned it, and I'm mighty grateful to those who've taught me.
That's why I'm out on the summer trail same as you. But I've only a
small outfit. Three neches and two canoes back there on the river that
comes up out of the south, and doesn't quit till it reaches the seas of
snow and ice that never thaw. We can't chase the territory wide like you
can. We can't carry food for caches, or make the big portages. So we
hunt the river, and a day's trail on either bank. There's beaver and fox
to be had that way, and it's most all I can hope for. I don't worry if
we get it plenty. You see, I need it big--this trip."

Something of the strangeness of the encounter was passing from Marcel's
mind. A curious feeling of intimacy was induced by the girl's brief
outline of the things that concerned herself. Then, above all, there was
that youthful desire, untainted by any baseness of passion, the natural
desire inspired by the appeal of a sweet face, and the smiling eyes of a
young girl, battling in a country where there is no margin for the
strongest of men.

Nor had Marcel forgotten all the early teachings of Uncle Steve. He knew
it was demanded of him that woman, in all her moods, was man's heritage
to help, to protect, to relieve, where possible, of those heavy burdens
with which nature so mercilessly weighs her down. The opening lay there
to his hand, and he seized upon it with an impulse that needed nothing
to support it.

"You're needing pelts?" he cried. "Why, that's great!"

Keeko laughed shortly. She failed to realize the thought prompting
Marcel's evident delight.

"It would be greater if I didn't," she returned, with a rueful shake of
the head.

"How's that?"

"Why it's days since our traps have shown us so much as a wolf track.
And it's nearly a week since we took our last beaver. There's three
months of the season left, and I'm needing a three-thousand-dollar trade
with Lorson Harris at Seal Bay. Maybe you don't know what that means?"

"Maybe I do," Marcel laughed.

"