From the coast he had made his way the hundred and fifty miles to the head of Eskimo Bay, and there took up the life of a trapper.  Rumour had it that he had committed murder at home and had run away to escape the penalty; but this rumour was unverified, and there was no means of learning the truth of it.  Since his arrival here the hunters had lost, now and again, martens and foxes from their traps, and it was whispered that Micmac John was responsible for their disappearance.  Nevertheless, without any tangible evidence that he had stolen them, he was treated with kindness, though he had made no real friends amongst the natives.

When the last of the men had closed the kitchen door behind him, Micmac John approached Douglas, who had been standing somewhat apart, evidently lost in his thoughts as he watched the approaching boat, and asked: 

“Have ye decided about the Big Hill trail, sir?”

“Yes, John.”

“And am I to hunt it this year, sir?”

“No, John, I can’t let ye have un.  I told Bob Gray th’ day I’d let him hunt un.  Bob’s a smart lad, and I wants t’ give he th’ chance.”

Micmac John cast a malicious glance at old Douglas.  Then with an assumed indifference, and shrug of his shoulders as he started to walk away, remarked: 

“All right if you’ve made yer mind up, but you’ll be sorry fer it.”

Douglas turned fiercely upon him.

“What mean you, man?  Be that a threat?  Speak now!”

“I make no threats, but boys can’t hunt, and he’ll bring ye no fur.  Ye’ll get nothin’ fer yer pains.  Ye’ll be sorry fer it.”

“Well,” said Douglas as Micmac John walked away to join the others in the kitchen, “I’ve promised th’ lad, an’ what I promises I does, an’ I’ll stand by it.”

Bob Gray, sitting at the tiller of his little punt, The Rover, was very happy—­happy because the world was so beautiful, happy because he lived, and especially happy because of the great good fortune that had come to him this day when Douglas Campbell granted his request to let him hunt the Big Hill trail, with its two hundred good marten and fox traps.

It had been a year of misfortune for the Grays.  The previous winter when Bob’s father started out upon his trapping trail a wolverine persistently and systematically followed him, destroying almost every fox and marten that he had caught.  All known methods to catch or kill the animal were resorted to, but with the cunning that its prehistoric ancestors had handed down to it, it avoided every pitfall.  The fox is a poor bungler compared with the wolverine.  The result of all this was that Richard Gray had no fur in the spring with which to pay his debt at the trading store.