He shook hands with them in silence, nor did he ask them at once to deliver to him their message, well knowing from unhappy experience that to attempt to hurry an Indian is to cause him to delay. Instead, he set about doing them favours, that so they might be the more willing to oblige him. He led the way up to his store and, displaying to them his wares, told them to choose themselves each a present. There were gaudy shawls, beflowered muslin dress-lengths, rifles, watches, clocks, suits of clothing and city head-gear, probably misfits or the refuse of a bankrupt's stock which Wrath had bought cheap, all of them long since out of date; there were even battered dolls and children's toys lying about mixed up with canned goods and groceries—a miscellaneous array. Arranged along one wall were all the implements of the trapper's trade and the articles of common use, such as kettles, pans, enamel cups and plates, coils of rope, etc. With the inborn thriftlessness of the Indian, at the articles of essential worth they only glanced, after which they turned aside from them. Not until an hour had passed did one of the men make up his mind to take a top-hat for his present, broad-brimmed and dusty, from off which most of the silk was worn—a relic, perhaps, of the outside respectability with which one of the Winnipeg partners had been wont to clothe himself years since, when he went to church and still had hopes that one day he might live to see himself an honest man. But the second visitor could find nothing that met with his approval; now that his companion was owner of the top-hat, he felt that of all things, sacks of flour, rifles, sails, knives, that was the one and only present which he would have chosen. Granger was losing patience, though he did not dare to show it. There were so many tidings which that letter, if letter it was, might contain—news concerning Spurling, Strangeways, his mother, Mordaunt. To cut his suspense short by a few minutes he was willing to pay almost any price. Still the Indian procrastinated and seemed to be more and more inclined to become obstinate and offended. Transgressing the usual rule of a trading-store, he had seated himself on a pile of nets and was striking a match to light his pipe.
Granger gazed round his stock in desperation, endeavouring to discover something, whatever its value, which would be acceptable.
A sudden inspiration came to him. Reaching up to a shelf, he took down an oblong box, about nine inches in length, adjusted several parts of it on the inside, wound it up with a key which was in the back, and set it on the counter. A whirring, coughing noise was heard, as though a creature hidden inside was clearing its throat to prevent itself from choking; after a few seconds of this, a voice, so thin and whispering that it seemed impossible that it should ever have come from a person who owned a chest, commenced to sing with an atrocious perversion of the vowels,
"Sife in the h'arms of Jesus,
Sife on 'is gentle breast,
There by 'is love o'ershadowed
Sweetly my soul shall rest."
He cut it short at the end of one verse, for he could endure no more of that—the tears were in his eyes. Ugly as the dialect was in itself and often as it had revolted him in former days, there was something hauntingly pathetic about it when combined with religion, and sung in Keewatin by that weakling voice; the London voice, shut up in the mildewed box, was an exile like himself. When he was a child, he had heard his mother sing those words, and that was at a time when he believed in the faith which they expressed. For him there was now no overshadowing God—only a careless, and perhaps unconscious, tyrant.
But he had accomplished his purpose, for the Indian was won over and beaming with pleasure. Gramo-phones had not been long introduced into the district as articles of trade; as yet only the chiefs and most successful trappers could purchase them. To own one was equivalent to keeping a butler in civilisation. Seeing the greed in the man's eyes, he told him that he could have it so soon as he had declared his business and delivered his message.
This promise caused the oracle to work. Diving his hand beneath his shirt, the Indian drew forth a pouch which was slung about his neck, and, opening it, produced from it a letter. Then snatching up his play-thing, he and his companion, proud in his top-hat, went outside to build their fire, and to make their camp, leaving the trader to himself.
Granger rose up and made fast the door behind them, so that he might be undisturbed. Now that he held within his hand the solution to the problem of their visit, he was willing to postpone the fuller knowledge lest it should make him sad. Sitting himself down on the edge of the counter he drew forth his pipe and filled it slowly; and when that was done, still more slowly commenced searching for a match, found it at last and kindled the tobacco. He looked at the address; it was in Wrath's handwriting, but the envelope bore no stamp—it had evidently been sent up by him in haste over the entire six hundred and eighty miles by private carrier. That meant that the news was important, for such means of transit were expensive. Breaking the seal, he found a letter enclosed, which had been addressed to him in care of Wrath; it also was unstamped, but it bore in the left-hand corner the name of his mother's firm of London solicitors. About it was folded a note from Wrath himself, which read:
Dear Granger,
The enclosed letter arrived here by yesterday's mail. It was accompanied by a letter to myself from some London lawyers, urging me to deliver it into your hands in the quickest possible time, regardless of expense. Carrying out my instructions, I am sending it up to you by private messengers; heaven knows how long it would take to get to you, were I to send it any other way. Of course I shall dock the cost of its transit from your salary, which means that if you don't have a good year's trade, I sha'n't have much to pay you.