ling the roster of eligible maidens,
which, name by name, as fast as uttered, were stamped ineligible by John
Fox, with specified objections appended. Again he gave it up and started
to return to the Fort. Snettishane watched him go, making no effort to
stop him, but seeing him, in the end, stop himself.

"Come to think of it," the Factor remarked, "we both of us forgot Lit-
lit. Now I wonder if she'll suit me?"

Snettishane met the suggestion with a mirthless face, behind the mask of
which his soul grinned wide. It was a distinct victory. Had the Factor
gone but one step farther, perforce Snettishane would himself have
mentioned the name of Lit-lit, but--the Factor had not gone that one step
farther.

The chief was non-committal concerning Lit-lit's suitability, till he
drove the white man into taking the next step in order of procedure.

"Well," the Factor meditated aloud, "the only way to find out is to make
a try of it." He raised his voice. "So I will give for Lit-lit ten
blankets and three pounds of tobacco which is good tobacco."

Snettishane replied with a gesture which seemed to say that all the
blankets and tobacco in all the world could not compensate him for the
loss of Lit-lit and her manifold virtues. When pressed by the Factor to
set a price, he coolly placed it at five hundred blankets, ten guns,
fifty pounds of tobacco, twenty scarlet cloths, ten bottles of rum, a
music-box, and lastly the good-will and best offices of the Factor, with
a place by his fire.

The Factor apparently suffered a stroke of apoplexy, which stroke was
successful in reducing the blankets to two hundred and in cutting out the
place by the fire--an unheard-of condition in the marriages of white men
with the daughters of the soil. In the end, after three hours more of
chaffering, they came to an agreement. For Lit-lit Snettishane was to
receive one hundred blankets, five pounds of tobacco, three guns, and a
bottle of rum, goodwill and best offices included, which according to
John Fox, was ten blankets and a gun more than she was worth. And as he
went home through the wee sma' hours, the three-o'clock sun blazing in
the due north-east, he was unpleasantly aware that Snettishane had bested
him over the bargain.

Snettishane, tired and victorious, sought his bed, and discovered Lit-lit
before she could escape from the lodge.

He grunted knowingly: "Thou hast seen. Thou has heard. Wherefore it be
plain to thee thy