“I’ll take it,” answered Wentworth.

“An’ ye’ll start to-morrow?”

“Why—­it’s pretty short notice—­but—­yes, I’ll start to-morrow.”

Old John McNabb drew a check which he handed to Wentworth.

“Expenses, an’ a month’s advance salary,” grunted the older man.

“And when do you want a report on the mill site?”

“As soon after the ice goes out as you can make it.”

“And you will be up during the summer?”

“Some time in July—­I’ve got to be there on the first of August to close that option.  Take those location papers with ye.  Ye’ll need them, an’ the map—­I have another copy in the vault at the bank.  I’ll bring ’em up when I come, so if somethin’ comes up so you couldn’t be at the post on the first of August, it won’t hold up the deal.  Run along now, I must catch the 11:45 train for Grand Rapids—­see you in July.”

IV

Upstairs in the fur department Oskar Hedin paused in the act of returning some fox pieces to their place, and greeted the girl who had halted before the tall pier glass to readjust her hat and push a refractory strand of hair into place.  “Back again?” he smiled.  “And now for the coat!”

“Now for the coat,” she repeated.  “What kind of a coat do I want, Oskar?  I want to try on lots of them.  I don’t know a thing in the world about furs.  All I know is that I’ve seen some I liked, and some that I didn’t care much for.”

For half an hour Jean tried on coats, until her choice had narrowed down to a handsome dark baum marten, and a shimmery gray squirrel.

“I think they’re both lovely, and I can’t quite make up my mind,” she said at last, in a tone of mock despair.  “It’s worse than picking out toboggan caps.  I just helped Mr. Wentworth select one—­and, oh, by the way, I believe dad is going to find a place for him.”

“For who?” asked Hedin, and Jean noticed tiny wrinkles gather between his eyes.

“Why, for Mr. Wentworth, of course.  You see, I told dad that he’d just lost his position with that old Nettle River thing they were trying to put through, and Dad said if he was a civil engineer, and out of a job, to tell him to drop in and see him, so I took him in and introduced him and I guess they’re still talking.”

“Humph,” grunted Hedin.

“You don’t need to be so grumpy about it.  Mr. Wentworth is awfully nice, and all the girls are crazy about him.”

“I don’t think that gives you any call to rave much over him when it was Fred Orcutt that brought him here, and he brought him for no other purpose than to knife your father,” replied Hedin dryly.