There were also to be a trading-post, where the Indians could purchase supplies at cost; a six-room cottage for the accommodation of Big Lena, Miss Penny, and Chloe; and numerous three-room cabins for the housing of whole families of Indians, which the girl fondly pictured as flocking in from the wilderness to have the errors of their heathenish religion pointed out to them upon a brand-new blackboard, and the discomforts of their nomadic lives assuaged by an introduction to collapsible bath-tubs and the multiplication table.  For hers was to be a mission as well as a school.  Truly the souls north of sixty were destined to owe her much.  For they borrow cheerfully, and repay—­never.

So much for Chloe Elliston’s plan.  Lapierre, however, had his own eminently more practical, if less Utopian, ideas concerning the erection of a trading-post; for in the quarter-breed’s mind the planting of an independent trading-post upon the very threshold of MacNair’s wilderness empire was of far greater importance than the establishment of a school, or mission, or any other institution—­especially when the post was one which he himself had set about to control.  The man’s eyes gleamed and the thin lips smiled as his glance rested momentarily upon the figure of the girl—­the unwitting, and therefore the more powerful, weapon that chance had placed in his hands in his battle against MacNair.

His idea of a post was simplicity itself:  One long, log trading-room with an ell for a storehouse, and a room—­two at the most—­in the rear for the accommodation of the three women.  The whole to be erected in the centre of the clearing, and surrounded by a fifteen-foot log stockade.

Boldly he broached his plan.

“But this is not a trading-post!” objected the girl.  “The store is a side issue and is to be conducted merely to permit those who take advantage of my school to obtain the necessities of life at a fair and reasonable price.”

“Your words were well chosen, Miss Elliston.  For if you begin to undersell the H.B.C., and more especially the independents, every Indian in the North will proceed to ‘take advantage’ of your school and of you also.”

“But they are being robbed!”

Lapierre smiled.  “They do not know it; they are used to it.  Let me warn you that to tamper with existing trade schedules, except by one experienced in the commerce of the North, is to invite disaster.  You will lose money!”

“But you told me that you yourself gave the Indians better bargains than either the Hudson Bay Company or MacNair.”

“I know the North!  And you may be assured the concessions are more nominal than real.”

“Very well, then,” flashed the girl.  “My concessions will be more real than nominal, and of that you may be assured.  If my store pays expenses, well and good!” And by the tone of the girl’s voice, and the slight, unconscious out-thrust of her chin, Pierre Lapierre knew that the time was unpropitious for a further discussion of trade principles.