“Then you still owe the original owner of the skin four hundred an’ some odd dollars,” said the trapper.
“Business is business,” protested the man in bed. “I bought the skin an’ I sold it; an’ now I wisht it had been burnt to a cinder before I ever seen it!”
“Give me four hundred dollars for Jim Conley’s wife and kids and I won’t make that charge against you,” said Young Dan.
The deputy-sheriff, who had been gazing reflectively out of the window, turned at that with an air of decision and regarded the trapper with level eyes.
“I’m goin’ to be downright and honest with both of you,” he said. “It’s nothing to me if you get four hundred dollars out of Watt for Conley’s wife and kids, or if you don’t. It’s no concern of mine. I don’t care what dicker you make with him, or if he keeps his end of the bargain or goes back on it—but I tell you both that whatever happens, he is pinched for selling gin. He is pinched good and hard for selling gin, and he’ll go to jail for it, without the option of a fine, as sure as my name is Wallace; and I’ll put a constable into this house to guard him until he’s fit to go to jail and await his trial.”
“But I won’t make the other charge, if you’ll give me four hundred for Jim Conley’s wife and babies,” said the trapper to Watt.
“I’ll do that,” replied Watt. “Go over to the store an’ fetch my wife, will you? She takes care of the money.”
Young Dan went to the store and found a young woman with a red head in charge. She informed him that Mrs. Watt had gone to the mill on business and wouldn’t be back for half an hour, perhaps. He returned to Luke Watt’s bedroom with this information.
“She ain’t got no business over to the mill,” said Watt. “Maybe she’s in the house somewheres. Take a look round the house for her, will you, an’ tell her I want to see her quick.”
So Young Dan left the bed-room again and searched the house high and low. The only living thing he found in it was a cat in the kitchen; but he saw melted snow here and there on the kitchen floor. He looked closely at the damp marks and knew them for the tracks of feet shod in arctics. He saw that the tracks began at the outer door of the kitchen, crossed to the big dresser and returned to the door. He opened the door, which was not locked, and looked into the cold shed. He saw a few small films of pressed snow on the dusty floor of the shed, between the shed-door and the kitchen-door. He went back to the big dresser and gazed curiously and eagerly for a few seconds at its dish-laden shelves and the closed doors of its cupboards, then returned to the room upstairs and said that the house was empty.