“I say I knows him, and I guess I understand what I’m talkin’ about.”
“But the Noah Sturgeon I mean can’t be alive now. He was an old man twenty years ago. Must be a son of his you know, Amos.”
“Son nothin’. I tells you, mister, it’s old Noah hisself as I knows. O’ course he’s old—must be nigh a hundred. But he’s spry yet. Often comes over to Big McTavish’s, he does. Lives on the P’int ’cross the bay.”
Smythe drew forward a stool and sat down with his chin in his hands. He was disturbed in his meditations by Broadcrook’s standing up.
“Guess I’d better be trampin’,” said that gentleman.
“Wait a moment,” said Smythe, “I’m going to give you two pounds of good powder and a couple of sheafs of lead. If you will come back here, say, next Saturday, I’ll give you more—much more. But you must do something for me, will you?”
“Name it, and I’ll do it,” promised the delighted trapper.
Smythe glanced fearfully toward the door, and, tiptoeing across to it, shut Sambo in the other room, then bending he whispered something in Broadcrook’s ear. Whatever it was it seemed to astound and not altogether displease the burly fellow. His red face screwed itself up in a horrible grimace and he guffawed loudly.
“Course, if y’ gimme the three hundred, I’ll send old Noah somewheres,” he wheezed.
“Broadcrook,” said Smythe sternly, “don’t mistake my meaning. I know there is danger of accident to the aged and frail, and that life’s ruddy current flows but sluggishly in the veins of old men; but, my dear Broadcrook, no violence—no violence, remember. However, when I am sure, without a doubt, that Noah has departed—ahem!—to some remote country for good, why, the money is yours. You see he won’t let the other Indians sell me their furs, but makes them carry them to St. Thomas.”