“Best year I ever had,” said Glen and, kneeling, cut the thong that bound the bundle.
Don’s eyes seemed fairly to be popping from his head as he watched the old trapper lift pelt after pelt from the closely-packed pile. There must have easily been several thousand dollars’ worth there on the floor. Perhaps one-fourth of the pelts were muskrat; the rest were beaver, otter, mink, martin, sable, ermine and finally the trapper’s greatest prize—a silver fox.
“You don’t mean to say——” Aunt Martha began again. “Why, you surely don’t intend to give me all these!”
At that the old trapper threw back his head and laughed for fully half a minute. “All!” he exclaimed. “Why, bless your heart, Aunt Martha, you should have seen the catch I made. This isn’t one-fifth—no, not one-tenth!”
He seated himself in front of the fire and began to fill his pipe. “Never saw so much fur in my life,” he said.
“Where have you been?” Uncle David asked.
“Up Quebec way and beyond.”
While the two men were talking, Don not only listened eagerly, but studied the visitor closely. He was a short man with broad sloping shoulders and a pair of long heavy arms. His musket, which he had carried in when he went to get the furs, lay beside his coonskin cap on the floor. Though the weapon lay several feet from him, Don was sure that the man could get it in a fraction of a second, if he needed it badly; for he had crossed the floor with the quick noiseless tread of a cat. Now he was lying back in his chair, and his deep-set black eyes seemed to sparkle and burn in the moving light of the fire. His face was like dark tanned leather drawn over high cheek bones; his hair was long and jet black. His pipe seemed twice the size of Uncle David’s when it was in his mouth, but when the trapper’s sinewy hand closed over the bowl it seemed very small. Glen Drake was just the sort of man to catch a boy’s fancy.
All evening Don sat enthralled, listening to the stories the man told of the north, and Aunt Martha had to use all her power of persuasion to send her nephew off to bed. “No more pie for a week, Donald, unless you go this instant,” she said at last.
“You like pie, Don?” asked the trapper. “Well, so do I. And I like boys also, and since I hope to be here for some little time maybe you and I can get to be real friendly.”