"Father, don't you think it would be a good idea if you took son-in-law
into partnership very soon?"

"Yes, Mother, I do, because business is rapidly growing, and I'll need
help in the spring. Besides, it would give me a chance to do my own
fur-running in winter, and in that way I believe I could double, if not
treble, our income."

Athabasca turned crimson and I followed suit--for being a born blusher
myself, and mortally hating it, I could never refrain from sympathizing
with others similarly afflicted.

"Precisely, Father," replied Mrs. Spear, "that's exactly what I
thought. So you see you wouldn't be making any sacrifice whatever, and
such an arrangement would prove an advantage all round. Everybody
would be the happier for it, and it seems to me to delay the wedding
would be a vital mistake."

From that moment until we left the table Athabasca concentrated her
vision on her plate; and I wondered more than ever who "Son-in-law"
could be. Then an idea came to me, and I mused: "We'll surely see him
at Fort Consolation."

After supper I discovered a new member of the household, a chore-boy,
twenty-eight years of age, who had come out from England to learn
farming in the Free Trader's stump lot, and who was paying Mr. Spear so
many hundred dollars a year for that privilege, and also for the
pleasure of daily cleaning out the stable--and the pig pen. When I
first saw him, I thought: "Why here, at last, is 'Son-in-law.'" But on