"You'll be trader?"
"No. Fatbald's widow Two Bits owns the post, not me. She got more brains than me when it comes to trading, and she's wife of the Head Chief Sitting Wolf, my friend."
"I see," said Douglas thoughtfully. "And you? Where do you come into this? When you've given everything away, what then, King Storm?"
"What then?"
Storm's mood changed always with bewildering suddenness. Within this brief conversation he had been cordial, truculent, grateful, shrewd, poetic, whimsical, wistful, ferocious, and now astounded Douglas by showing the reserve of an English gentleman intruded upon by strangers. This forlorn bargee and ordinary seaman, fugitive from justice, had an extraordinary air of breeding. "I don't understand you," he said, and turned away, as though to end the interview.
"My dear chap," said the administrator, treating Storm, for the first time, as an equal, "I really must beg your pardon. Your private affairs——"
Storm swung around sharply.
"'Ow about them guns?"
"Oh, I must see our resident officer. You'll count on my good offices?"
"Thank you."