With the strengthening cold that came with January and continued into February, the animals ceased to venture far from their lairs in search of food, and the harvest of the trails was therefore light. With the disappearance of rabbits, the fox and lynx had also disappeared. The rabbit is the chief prey of these animals during the tight midwinter months, and as the wolf follows the caribou, so the fox follows the rabbit.

With the going of the fox the field of operations was not only narrowed, but the work was robbed of much of its zest. When foxes are fairly numerous the trapper is always buoyed with the hope that a black or silver fox, the most valuable of the fur-bearing animals, may wander into his traps; and this hope renders less irksome the weary tramping of the trails at seasons when the returns might otherwise seem too small a recompense for the hardships and isolation suffered.

The two preceding years had yielded rich harvests to Dick Blake, and had more than fulfilled his modest expectations. He was, therefore, though certainly disappointed, far from discouraged with the present outlook, and very cheerfully accepted the few marten and mink pelts that fell to his lot as a half loaf by no means to be despised.

While Ungava Bob had looked forward to a successful winter's trapping, his chief object in coming so far into the wilderness had been the establishment of his new trails as a basis for future trading operations; and more particularly, therefore, with a view to the future than to the immediate present. Neither was he, for this reason, in any wise discouraged. His youthful mind, engaged in planning the castles he was to build tomorrow, had no room for the disappointments of to-day.

Sishetakushin had given Bob the assurance that the Nascaupees would bring him their furs to barter. He was satisfied, also, that he could secure a large share of the trade of the Eastern, or Bay, Mountaineer Indians, for he would pay a fair and reasonable price for their furs, and they would quickly recognise the advantage of trading with him. And he would have another advantage over the coast traders: he would establish a trading station in the very heart of the wilderness, in the midst of the Indian hunting country.

Previous to his coming into his little fortune his father had, as far back as Bob could remember, been struggling under a load of debt. At times the family had been plunged into the very uttermost depths of poverty; and even now a sickening dread stole upon Bob as he recalled some of the winters through which they had passed when the factor at the post had refused them further credit, and the flour barrel at home was empty, and they could scarcely have survived had it not been for the bounty of Douglas Campbell.

This was the condition still with many of the families of the Bay. They were always in debt to the Company for advances of provisions, and there was no hope that they could ever emerge from the deplorable condition. It was the policy of the Company that they should not.

In accepting credit from the Company, the trapper placed himself under obligation to deliver to the Company every product of his labours until the debt was discharged. The Company allowed the trapper in return for his pelts such an amount as it saw fit. He had no word in the matter, and of necessity was compelled to accept the Company's valuation of his furs, which valuation the Company took good care to place so low as to obviate any probability of his release from debt. At a reasonable valuation of their furs, there was seldom a year that most, if not all, the Bay trappers might not have been freed from their serfdom.

Thus when a trapper died his only inheritance to his children was a burden of debt, which sometimes passed down from generation to generation; for the son who refused to assume his father's debt was denied credit or consideration at the Company's stores.

The Grays, as we have stated, had felt the heavy hand of this inquisitional system. Now that they were free, Bob's sympathy was poured out to his neighbours, and he was secretly planning how, when he became a trader, he might also compass their release.

As rapidly as his profits would permit, Bob was determined to advance, first to one family, then to another, sufficient cash to discharge their debts and relieve them from their obligation to the Company.

Then he would advance them the necessary provisions and supplies to sustain them until they returned from their trails with their hunt. He would buy their pelts at as high a price as he could afford with a reasonable profit. This price would always be certainly double, and often four or five times, that which the Company was accustomed to allow.

Bob, thus forming his Utopian plans, forgot the tedium of the trail. No person is so happy as when doing something to make some other person happy. And Bob was happy because he believed he was to be the means of bringing happiness to many. Making a comfortable living himself, he would make it possible for his neighbours to make a comfortable living, also.

It never occurred to him that failure was possible, or that, with the amount of capital which he believed was still at his disposal, the plan was unpractical. Young, highly optimistic, and somewhat visionary, his dreams assumed the status of reality.

Bob's mind was thus pleasantly occupied when at the end of the first week in February he returned to the river tilt to find Ed Matheson and Bill Campbell back from Eskimo Bay, and Dick Blake, just in from his trail, drawing off his frost-encrusted adicky.

"An' there's Bob, now!" exclaimed Ed, as Bob appeared in the doorway.

"'Tis grand, now, t' see you back," said Bob, his face beaming welcome as he shook the hands of the returned travellers. "Dick an' me's been missin' you wonderful."

"'Twere grand, now, t' see th' tilt when Bill an' me comes in last evenin'. 'Twere th' hardest pull up from th' Bay with our loads we ever has, an' we was tired enough t' drop when we gets here. Where's Shad?"

"Wi' th' Injuns yet, an' I'm worryin' about he not comin' back. They must ha' gone a long ways down north lookin' for deer, or they'd been back before this. How'd you find th' folks at th' Bay, Ed?"

"Fine--all of un fine. Your mother's wantin' wonderful bad t' see you. But when I tells she you'm all right, she stops worryin'. I were forgettin' t' say anything about th' trouble wi' th' Mingens, though;" and Ed grinned.

"Forgettin' a purpose?" asked Bob, smiling.

"Maybe so," admitted Ed. "What's past don't do nobody no good t' know when they's nothin' for un t' make right. 'Twouldn't ha' helped none for she t' know about th' Mingens, so I just naturally forgets un."

"I'm glad o' that. Mother'd 'a' worried an' been thinkin' all sorts o' things happenin' what never would happen;" and, greatly relieved, Bob asked, "An' when'd you make th' Bay?"

"'Twere just New Year. Bill an' me cruises along fast, bein' light, an' takin' short sleeps. 'Twere night when we gets t' Wolf Bight, an' I says t' Bill, says I: ''Tis near midnight, an' likewise t' th' New Year. They'll be sleepin', an' le's's wake un up ............