“She says a whole lot of things, Ben,” she cried. “But then you see she’s the mother of six bright kids who’re yearning to learn, and she doesn’t guess to let them down, or have them tell her instead. Yes, she said that sure, when we were wondering how your quitting was going to fix us. You see, I’ve depended on your store for trade. I guess I was the only supply of pelts that came your way. And you were the only supply for our needs. Your folks are right,” she added, with a sigh. “You can’t run a trading post to hand out to a bunch of kids the stuff that makes life reasonable, and for the sake of the few bales of furs we’re able to snatch before they fall into the hands of foreign poachers. It was sure flogging a dead mule. But it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be tough for us, as well as for you and your folk. I’ve tried to look ahead and see what’s to be done, but I can’t see all I’d like to. Mum reckons we’ll get through, but she leaves it to Providence and me to say how.”
The man bit off a chew of tobacco and shouted some orders at the men stowing the last of the stores. His words came forcefully amidst a shower of harsh expletives. Then he turned again to the girl.
“I’d say your Mum’s as bright a woman as the good God ever permitted to use up his best air,” he said, with a shake of his grey head. “But I just can’t see how trading reindeer with the fool Eskimo up north’s goin’ to feed a whole bunch of hungry mouths, and clothe a dandy outfit of growin’ bodies right, if there ain’t a near-by market for your goods, and a store to trade you the things you need. There ain’t a post from here to Placer, which is more than three hundred and fifty miles by the river. It kind o’ looks bad to me.”
“Yes.”
The smile had passed out of the girl’s eyes, and her fair brows had drawn slightly together under the rim of her fur cap.
“You see, Kid,” the man went on, in a tone that was almost gentle for all the natural harshness of his voice, “I’d be mighty glad to fix you as right as things’ll let me. We’ve figgered on this thing all we know, you and me, and you’ve a year’s store of canned goods and groceries by you paid for by your last bunch of pelts. But after that—what?”
The swift glance of the Kid’s eyes took in the earnest expression of the man’s rugged face. She realised his genuine concern in spite of all the worries with which his own affairs beset him. And forthwith she broke into a laugh that completely disarmed.
“We’ll need to feed caribou meat,” she said. “The farm’s plumb full of it. Mum says the good God’s always ready to help those who help themselves. And I guess the bunch at home’ll do that surely when they find their vitals rattling in the blizzard. Don’t just worry a thing, Ben. You’ve done the best for us, you know. For all the grouch you hand out to most folk you’re white all thro’. You’re forgetting there’s Usak and me. If it means Placer for trade and food for the bunch I guess we’ll make it.”
The girl’s laugh, and her lightness of manner in her dismissal of the threat overshadowing her future and that of those who were largely her care made their talk easy. But there was seriousness and a great courage lying behind it. She knew the nightmare this break up of her market was to all those she cared for. But she had no intention of adding one single moment of disquiet to the burden of the man’s concern for his own future.
“But it’s a hell of a long piece, Kid,” the factor protested with a shake of his shaggy grey head. “Couldn’t you folks quit too?”