“I mean your clerk ain’t the fool he lets on he is.  That room you put me in was next to his.  The chinkin’s fallen out in spots, an’ his light was lit late, so I just laid in my bunk an’ glued my eye to the crack.  He was readin’—­an’ enjoyin’ what he read.  He’d lay down the book now an’ then an’ light a good briar pipe.  I’d get a good look into his face then, an’ he’s no more a fool than you or I. He’s damned smart lookin’.  An’ the books he had laid out on the table wasn’t books a fool would be readin’.  He was careful to hide ’em away when he rolled in—­an’ he cleaned his fingernails with a white handled dingus, an’ brushed his teeth, an’ put the tools back in a black leather case that had silver trimmin’s.  Believe me, there’s somethin’ comin’ off here between now an’ summer, an’ I’m goin’ to ask for the detail!”

Murchison laughed.  “Come on back, Downey, and you’ll see the fun.  An’ I ain’t so sure you won’t be needed in your official capacity.  But don’t bother your head over Sven Larson.  Remember this:  it takes a smart man to play the fool, an’ play it right.  That’s why John McNabb sent him up here.  An’ his name ain’t Larson; it’s Hedin.  He’s John’s right-hand man—­an’ if I mistake not someday he’ll be his son-in-law.”

“Oh, I’ll be back all right,” grinned Downey.  “I’ve got a hunch that maybe I’ll be needed.”

“Ye wouldn’t be sorry to have to arrest Wentworth for some kind of thievery, would ye, Downey?  I could see ye distrusted him from the moment ye laid eyes on him.”

“U-m-m-m,” answered Downey.  “I was thinkin’ more of, maybe, bringin’ in Alex Thumb—­for murder.”

A week later Murchison accompanied Wentworth upon a ten-day trip, during the course of which they visited the proposed mill site, the McNabb holdings, and a great part of the available pulp-wood territory adjoining.  With Murchison’s help, Wentworth sketched a map of the district that showed with workable accuracy the location of lakes and streams, together with the location of Government and Hudson’s Bay Company lands.  This done, he secured an Indian guide and proceeded to lay out and blaze the route of the wagon road to the railway.

By the middle of May the snow had nearly disappeared, and the first of June saw the rivers running free of ice.  It was then that Wentworth “borrowed” Sven Larson from the factor and dropped down Gods River in a canoe to its confluence with the Shamattawa.  Camp was made at the head of the rapids.  Thereafter for five days Hedin worked under Wentworth’s direction, while the engineer ran his levels and established his contour.  In the evenings as they sat by the campfire smoking, Hedin preserved the same stolid silence that he had studiously observed since the coming of Wentworth.

“Murchison says you know all about fur,” Wentworth suggested one evening.  “And the finished fur?  Do you know that, too—­about, well, for instance kolinsky, and nutria, and Russian sable?”