“There’s no tellin’.  It’s accordin’ to the outfit he packs an’ the guide he’s got.  They’ll have to camp for the storm, an’ the snow will slow them up one-half.  The storm will last three days or four, an’ after that, a day, mebbe a week.  Anyways, ’twill give ye time to learn the duties of a factor’s clerk, which is a thing the Company has never furnished at Gods Lake, but if John McNabb foots the bill, they’ll not worry.  ‘Twould be better an’ ye could play the dolt—­not an eediot, or an addlepate—­but just a dull fellow, slow of wit, an’ knowin’ nought except of fur.”

Hedin laughed.  “That won’t bother me in the least.”

Murchison shook his head. “‘Twill not be so easy as ye think.  Askin’ foolish questions here an’ there, forgettin’ to do things ye’re told to do, ponderin’ deep over simple matters, an’ above all ye’re to neither laugh nor take offense when I berate ye for a dullard.  Ye get the idea—­your knowledge of fur is your only excuse for livin’?”

“I get it,” smiled Hedin.

Murchison studied the younger man intently.  “This Wentworth—­how well did ye know him?  Or, rather, how well did he know you?”

“You are wondering whether he will recognize me?”

The factor nodded.  “Yes, I would not have known ye, for as I remember ye wore a mustache, an’ were smooth of chin an’ jaw, an’ of course, ye wore city clothes.  But one who had known ye well wouldn’t be so easy fooled.”

“He won’t recognize me.  We have met only a few times.  But even if he had known me much better I wouldn’t be afraid, because when I left Terrace City dressed in these togs, and carrying a lumberjacks’ turkey on my back, I stopped into a cigar store and inquired the way to the station.  The clerk who has seen me every day for years pointed out the way without a flicker of recognition in his eyes—­and I didn’t have this stubby beard then either.”

Murchison seemed satisfied, and after showing his new clerk to his bed, he returned to the stove and knocked the ash from his pipe.  “John is canny,” he grinned.  “As canny in the handlin’ of women, as of men.  He’ll have the son-in-law he wants, an’ careful he’ll be that he’s the man of the lass’s own choosin’.”

XIV

On the day after the big storm old Missinabbee returned to the southward, and the following day Wentworth arrived at the post, cursing his guide, and the storm, and the snow that lay deep in the forest.  The half-breed refused to stop over and rest, but accepted his pay and turned his dogs on the back-trail.  And as Murchison accepted McNabb’s letter of introduction from Wentworth’s hand in the door of the post trading room, his eyes followed the retreating form of the guide.  For he had caught a malevolent gleam of hate that flashed from the narrowed black eyes as the man had accepted his pay.

“Ye have not seen the last of yon,” he said, turning to Wentworth with a nod of his head toward the breed.  “Alex Thumb is counted a bad man in the North.  I would not rest so easy, an’ he was camped on my trail.”