"_You_ figured!" West's profanity polluted the clear, crisp morning
air. "I got to have a run in with you right soon. I can see that.
Think because you're C.N. Morse's nephew, you can slip yore funny
business over on me. I'll show you."

The reddish light glinted for a moment in the eyes of Morse, but he
said nothing. Young though he was, he had a capacity for silence. West
was not sensitive to atmospheres, but he felt the force of this young
man. It was not really in his mind to quarrel with him. For one thing
he would soon be a partner in the firm of C.N. Morse & Company, of
Fort Benton, one of the biggest trading outfits in the country. West
could not afford to break with the Morse interests.

With their diminished cargo the traders pushed north. Their
destination was Whoop-Up, at the junction of the Belly and the St.
Mary's Rivers. This fort had become a rendezvous for all the traders
within hundreds of miles, a point of supply for many small posts
scattered along the rivers of the North.

Twelve oxen were hitched to each three-wagon load. Four teams had left
Fort Benton together, but two of them had turned east toward Wood
Mountain before the party was out of the Assiniboine country. West had
pushed across Lonesome Prairie to the Sweet Grass Hills and from there
over the line into Canada.

Under the best of conditions West was no pleasant traveling companion.
Now he was in a state of continual sullen ill-temper. For the first
time in his life he had been publicly worsted. Practically he had
been kicked out of the buffalo camp, just as though he were a drunken
half-breed and not one whose barroom brawls were sagas of the