Ras Taylor was the breed whose scrip-land Robison had bought. Incidentally Ras Taylor had also been very drunk at intervals for some months. But it was known that Robison had been very good to him and had paid him in advance for part of his next year's trapping, Ras being too deeply in debt to the Hudson Bay Company to receive grace from them.
Robison nodded. This thing had been done before, although the Winnipeg Company which supplied the literature would not have warmly approved. But neither Ducane nor Robison had thought of seeking encouragement from them.
"Hand over the feller's letter, an' yer answer," said Robison. He took pains to know that Ducane reserved all his treachery for the other members of the Company, and he read the letters with deliberation.
"Looks all right," he said, and tossed them back. "Ducane, what's that Dick Heriot doing across here so often?"
"How should I know? I can't stop him or he'd suspect something."
"Do you think he ain't suspectin' everybody in Grey Wolf ever since he first got wind o' this? I heard all about him long before he come here. But you've got to watch out that he doesn't do more than suspect. See?"
Ducane's fat, ruddy face sagged and paled.
"He can't suspect. How should he? We never have"
"Well, take care as we never do, that's all. I'm lookin' for a chance ter git even with him, but it's long a-comin'." He pulled a flat sheet of paper from his mooseskin wallet. "See that?" he said. "That's what he done to me, the"
Ducane picked up Dick's sketch of the wood-buffalo, which was Robison. It was a little blurred by damp and rubbing, but it was unmistakable, and cruelly clever. Ducane laughed, holding it up against the light.
"By Jove, he's got his own idea of a joke," he said. "How long have you had this?"
"Never you mind." Robison leaned forward suddenly. "There's writin' on that other side. Faint pencil, an' I never saw it before. Hand it here."
