No doubt, when the silver fox pelt was missed, he would be accused of having stolen it. When they came to him, he would simply claim that he had purchased it from Toby, upon a trade basis, and that the price was five hundred and fifty dollars. He would stand upon this claim. He was prepared to supply them with goods to this extent of value at any time they might choose to come to his shop at White Bear Run and select them. The price he should put on the goods, he assured himself, would be sufficiently high to render the deal a highly profitable one for him.
Marks had no doubt that he could establish a plausible case. He assured himself that he had no intention of stealing the pelt. At most, he had been guilty only of sharp practice. He would pay for it. From the moment that Aaron Slade had told him about it, he had set his heart upon possessing it, and, he told himself, he usually got what he wanted.
"I'm a go-getter," he laughed in self-appreciation.
The sun was climbing in the sky, and the reflection from the great white field of snow covered ice was intense. At this season it is never safe to travel in the north with the eyes unprotected by goggles fitted with smoked or orange-tinted glasses. The penalty for neglect might prove a serious attack of snow-blindness.
Marks felt in a pocket for his goggles. He could not find them. He felt in another pocket, and repeated the search, but they were not to be found. Then he remembered that he had laid them on the shelf beside the clock, at Double Up Cove, at the time he had taken off his adikey the previous day, and he had no recollection of having removed them from the shelf.
It was a risk to proceed without them, but there was a very good reason why he could not safely return to the cabin at Double Up Cove. He felt that it was to his advantage, until the Twigs had become accustomed to the loss of the silver fox skin, to place as many miles as he could between himself and them, and to do it as quickly as possible. Toby was stubborn, and nobody knew what he might do in his first anger upon discovering his loss.
"He might even shoot," he mused. "That other fellow didn't like me, and the two work together. I'll take a chance without glasses, and won't go back for them."
He turned about on the komatik and looked toward the cabin, his guilty conscience prompting him to fear that even now he might be followed. The cabin was still in view, and to his relief he could discover no activity, and nothing to alarm him.
He urged the dogs forward, and did not halt until he had passed Pinch-In Tickle, and early in the afternoon had turned into the next bay to the southward.
Here he found a grove of spruce trees, and with firewood at hand he stopped and lighted a fire and put his kettle over to boil for luncheon.