“Air ye a half-breed?”
“No, I'm a Yank; my name is Kittering; born and bred in Redding, Connecticut.”
“Well, I swan, ye look it. At fust I took ye fur an Injun; ye did look dark (and Rolf laughed inside, as he thought of that butternut dye), but I'm bound to say we're glad yer white.”
“Here, Bill, this is Rolf, Rolf Kittering, he'll go with ye to Albany.” Bill, a loose-jointed, middle-aged, flat-footed, large-handed, semi-loafer, with keen gray eyes, looked up from a bundle he was roping.
Then Warren took Rolf aside and explained: “I'm sending down all my fur this trip. There's ten bales of sixty pounds each, pretty near my hull fortune. I want it took straight to Vandam's, and, night or day, don't leave it till ye git it there. He's close to the dock. I'm telling ye this for two reasons: The river's swarming with pirates and sneaks. They'd like nothing better than to get away with a five-hundred-dollar bundle of fur; and, next, while Bill is A1 on the river and true as steel, he's awful weak on the liquor; goes crazy, once it's in him. And I notice you've always refused it here. So don't stop at Troy, an' when ye get to Albany go straight past there to Vandam's. You'll have a letter that'll explain, and he'll supply the goods yer to bring back. He's a sort of a partner, and orders from him is same as from me.
“I suppose I ought to go myself, but this is the time all the fur is coming in here, an' I must be on hand to do the dickering, and there's too much much to risk it any longer in the storehouse.”
“Suppose,” said Rolf, “Bill wants to stop at Troy?”
“He won't. He's all right, given he's sober. I've give him the letter.”
“Couldn't you give me the letter, in case?”
“Law, Bill'd get mad and quit.”