Hedin hesitated a moment and plunged into the thing he had dreaded to say.  “Mr. McNabb, I’ve been up here several months now—­” he hesitated, and as the other made no comment, proceeded.  “I have come to like the country.  It—­I don’t think—­that is, I don’t want to go back to Terrace City.  You can understand, can’t you?  You have lived in the North.  I wasn’t born to be a clerk.  I hate it!  My father was a real man.  He lived, and he died like a man.  This is a man’s country.  I am going to stay.”  Hedin had expected an outburst of temper, and had steeled himself to withstand it.  Instead, Old John McNabb nodded slowly as he continued to puff at his pipe.

“So ye’re tired of workin’ for me.  Ye want to quit——­”

“It isn’t that.  I would rather work for you than any man I ever knew.  You have been like a father to me.  You will never know how I have appreciated that.  I know it seems ungrateful.  But the North has got me.  I never again could do your work justice.  My heart wouldn’t be in my work.  It would be here.”

“An’ will ye keep on workin’ for Murchison?  What will he pay ye?”

“It isn’t the pay.  I don’t care about that.  I have no one but myself to think of.  And Murchison said that with my knowledge of fur the Company would soon give me a post of my own.”

“But—­what of the future, lad?”

Hedin shrugged.  “All I ask of the future,” he answered, and McNabb noted just a touch of bitterness in the tone, “is that I may live it in the North.”

“H-m-m,” said McNabb, knocking the ashes from his pipe, “I guess the North has got ye, lad.  An’ I’m afraid it’s got Jean.  The lass has been rantin’ about it ever since we left the railway.  But—­who is that?  Yonder, just goin’ into the post?  My old eyes ain’t so good in the twilight.”

“Wentworth!” exclaimed Hedin, leaping to his feet.  “Come on!  The time has come for a showdown!”

Hedin’s voice rasped harsh, and McNabb noticed that the younger man’s fists were clenched as he laid a restraining hand upon his arm.  “Take it easy lad,” he said.  “Maybe it’s better we should play a waitin’ game.”

“Waiting game!” cried Hedin.  “I’ve been playing a waiting game for months—­and I’m through.  Good God, man!  Do you think my nerves are of iron?  I love Jean—­love her as it is possible for a man to love one woman.  I have loved her for years, and I will always love her.  And I’ve lost her.  That damned cad with his airs and his graces has won her completely away.  But, by God, he’ll never have her!  I’ll show him up in his true colors——­”

“An’ with him out of the way, lad, ye’ll then——­”

“With him out of the way she’ll despise me!” interrupted Hedin.  “She will never marry him out of loyalty to you, when she finds out he has tried to knife you.  I haven’t told you all I know—­when he falls, he’ll fall hard!  But I know what women think, and I know she’ll despise me for disguising myself and spying on him.”