earlier adventures. Everything is known up north.

In answer to Sam's questions, they informed him there was first-rate
bottom-land fifteen miles up the river on the other side. This was the
famous Spirit River land, eighteen inches of black loam on a sandy
subsoil.

A white man, Ed Chaney, had already squatted on a piece of it, a
lonely soul. There were some Indians nearer in.

Naturally, they were keen to know what Sam had come for. The last time
they had heard of him he was a freighter. His reticence stimulated
their curiosity.

"Come to look over the land before you bring your outfit in, I
suppose?" suggested Sollers, the trader.

"No, I'm going to stop," said Sam.

"How are you going to farm with an axe and a gun?"

"I'll build me a shack, and hunt and fish till I have a bit of luck,"
said Sam.

The two exchanged a look which said either this young man was
concealing something or he hadn't good sense.

"Luck doesn't come to a man up here," said the trader. "Nothing ever
happens of itself. You've got to turn in and make it."

Declining invitations to stop a night or a few days, or all summer,
Sam got the trader to put him across the river in a canoe. There was
also a scow to transport heavier loads. Landing, he turned up-stream.
Their description of the utter lonesomeness of that neighbourhood had
appealed to him.

The sun was growing low when he spied a little tent in the meadow,
rising from the river. The faint trail he was following ended at the
gate of a corral beside it. There was a cultivated field beyond. These
objects made an oddly artificial note in a world of untouched nature.
At the door of the tent stood a white man, gazing. A shout reached
Sam's ears. He was lucky in his man. Though he and Ed Chaney had had
but the briefest of meetings when the latter passed through the
settlement, Ed hailed him like a brother. He was a simple soul,
overflowing with kindness.

"Hello! Hello!" he cried. "Blest if I didn't think you was a ghost!
Ain't seen one of my own colour since I come. Gee! a fellow's tongue
gets rusty for the lack of wagging. Come on in. Ain't got much to
show, but what there is is yours. I'll have supper for you in two
shakes. It certainly was white of you to come on to me for the night."

Ed seemed to see nothing strange in Sam's situation, nor was he in the
least curious concerning the gossip of the country. This comforted Sam
strangely. Ed was a little, trim, round-headed man, w