"You took too much of it, old Blubbernose," yelled Jay, fiendishly; "Wolverine hasn't got a nose like the head of a Sturgeon Fish. Anyway, you're out of it, Mister Rat; if the Lieutenant says you're not fit for King, why you're not--I must say I'm glad of it."
"There are still the two cousins, Otter, and Mink," said Carcajou.
"Fish Thieves--both of them," declared Whisky-Jack. "So is Fisher, only he hasn't nerve to go in the water after Fish; he waits till Man catches and dries them, then robs the cache. That's why they call him Fisher--they should name him Fish-stealer."
"Look here, Jack," retorted Wolverine, "last Winter I heard François say that you stole even his soap."
"I thought it was butter," chuckled Jay--"it made me horribly sick. But their butter was so bad, I thought the soap was an extra good pat of it."
"I may say," continued Carcajou, "that these two cousins, Otter and Mink, like Muskrat, have too limited a knowledge for either to be Chief of the Boundaries. While they know all about streams and water powers, they'd be lost on land. Why, in deep snow, Nekik with his short, little legs makes a track as though somebody had pulled a log along--that wouldn't do."
"I don't want to be King!" declared Otter.
"Nor I!" added Mink.
"And we don't want you--so that settles it; all agreed!" cried Whisky-Jack, gleefully. "Nothing like having peace and harmony in the meeting. It always comes to the same thing: people's names are put up, they're blackguarded and abused, and in the end nobody's fit for the billet but Black Fox; and Carcajou, of course, is his Lieutenant."
"We have now considered everybody's claims," began Carcajou--