of Tempest's, and the two days of sailing and paddling up Hudson Bay itself into Fullerton, when it was found that the steamer had not waited for them, did not ease the trouble. Rough weather between Fullerton and Fort Churchill, with the little open steamer battling through the big seas and an early winter spurting in icy blasts down from the North had broken even Tempest's courage, and he accepted the decision of the men at the Fort Churchill post, and prepared to surrender up his reins of government to Dick.
Already Dick had taken up all those threads which it had been necessary for Tempest to drop. He had managed Ducane as no other man could have done; he had arranged the slow and exceedingly difficult matter of procuring dog-train outfits, and in the morning he was to leave with Ducane and Myers for the South. Previous instructions had transferred Depache to the Fullerton post, and Tempest would not soon forget the trouble in the man's gentle eyes as the little steamer snorted off from the wharf. Depache had looked after him with wonderful tenderness and forethought, and when he was left behind Tempest suffered considerably under Myers' rough hands and Dick's abrupt strength. Now he dropped the last pencil-scrawled, weather-stained note-book with a sigh of relief.
"I guess it's all in," he said. "Bring it here and let me look over it. You've got Earner's Fullerton reports all right, have you?"
"Yes. He's wanting a whole lot of lumber sent in next spring. Hope he'll get it." Dick gathered up the sheets and carried them over the room. "Do you want those ermine skins sent east right away?"
"Not if you can get them properly cured and made up in Winnipeg. If you wire Harley to meet you at the station he'll take charge of them. Tell him I want them fixed into the fashionable kind of furs women wear now. And tell him they're for my sister. He knows Betty."
So did Dick, and his memory jumped back to days in the old home far off in Ontario when he and Betty had climbed apple-trees together and pelted Tempest where he lay in the long grass with "The Canterbury Tales," or Schiller, or, in later days, Tolstoi or Schopenhauer. He
