"Hudson's Bay is not the highest bidder."
"Not unless you happen to have information they want."
"Oh! That's the way of it, is it?" So the boy was selling Nor'-Westers' secrets.
"You can bet your last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say—get your wares as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through judicious—distribution—of—information." And the boy gurgled with pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular clover! The Little Statue's here, all alone! Dad's gone to Pembina to the buffalo hunt. I've got ahead of all you fellows. I'm going to introduce a French-chap, a friend of mine."
"You'd much better break his bones," was my advice. It needed no great speculation to guess who the Frenchman was; and in the hands of that crafty rake this prattling babe would be as putty.
"Pah! You're jealous, Gillespie! We're right on the inside track!"
"Lots of confidential talks with her, I suppose?"
"Talks! Pah! You gross fatty! Why, Gillespie, what do you know of such things? Laplante can win a girl by just looking at her—French way, you know—he can pose better than a poem!"
"Blockhead," I ground out between my teeth, a feeling taking possession of me, which is designated "indignation" in the first person but jealousy in the second and third. "You stupid simpleton, that Laplante is a villain who will turn your addled pate and work you as an old wife kneads dough."
"What do you know about Laplante?" he demanded hotly.