"The Indian beats you! The Indian from Little Neck Lake—an Indian beats the white man! He offers twenty beaver—prime skins! And beaver are wanted in Paris now. They're wanted in London. Beaver and gold—they are the same! But they are the price of one dog alone. Shall they both go at that? Shall the Indian have them for twenty beaver—twenty beaver that may be taken from a single house in a day—while it has taken these malamutes two and a half years to grow? I say, you cheap kimootisks—"
And then an amazing thing happened. It was like a bomb falling in that crowded throng of wondering and amazed forest people.
It was the closely hooded stranger who spoke.
"I will give a hundred dollars cash," he said.
A look of annoyance crossed Reese Beaudin's face.
He was close to the bronze-faced stranger, and edged nearer.
"Let the Indian have them," he said in a low voice. "It is Meewe. I knew him years ago. He has carried me on his back. He taught me first to draw pictures."
"But they are powerful dogs," objected the stranger. "My team needs them."
The Cree had risen higher out of the crowd. One arm rose above his head. He was an Indian who had seen fifty years of the forests, and his face was the face of an Egyptian.
"Nesi-tu-now Nesoo-sap umisk!" he proclaimed.