"I shall have no further use for them for a long time," he said, "but after we reach our gold I mean to return here and get them."
Will, who noticed his grammatical and good English, rather unusual on the border, asked him how he came to be a fur hunter.
"Drift," he replied. "You would not think it, but it was my original intention to become a schoolmaster. An excursion into the west made me fall in love with the forest, the mountains, solitude and independence. I've always taken enough furs for a good living, and I'm absolutely my own master. Moreover, I'm an explorer and it gives me a keen pleasure to find a new river or a new mountain. And this northwest is filled with wonders. After we find the gold and my beaver colony, I'm going to write a book of a thousand pages about the wonders I've seen."
"I never saw anybody that wrote a book," said the Little Giant with the respect of the unlettered for the lettered, "an' I confess I ain't much of a hand at readin' 'em, but when I'm rich ez I expect to be a year or two from now, an' I build my fine house in St. Looey, I mean to have a room full of 'em, in fine leather an' morocco bindin's."
"Will you read them?" asked Will.
"Me read 'em! O' course not!" replied the Little Giant. "I'll hire a man to read 'em, an' he kin keep busy on them books while I'm away on my long huntin' trips."
"But that won't be you reading 'em."
"What diff'unce does that make? All a book asks is to be read by somebody, en' ef it's read by my reader 'stead o' me it's jest the same."
The days confirmed them in their choice of Brady as the fourth partner in the great hunt. Despite his rather stern and solemn manner he was at heart a man of most cheerful and optimistic temperament. He had, too, a vast fund of experience and he knew much of the wilderness that was unknown to others.
"What do you think of our plan of going straight ahead as soon as we can travel, and passing over the left shoulder of the White Dome?" asked Boyd.