In the eyes of men and women and little children he saw that happiness all about him.

For three winters there had been splendid trapping, Slim Buck told him, and this season they had caught and dried enough fish to carry them through the following winter, even if black days should come.

His people were rich.
They had many warm blankets, and good clothes, and the best of tepees and guns and sledges, and several treasures besides.

Two of these Yellow Bird and her husband disclosed to Jolly Roger this first night.

One of them was a sewing machine, and the other--a phonograph! And Jolly Roger listened to "Mother Machree" and "The Rosary" that night as he sat by Wollaston Lake with six hundred miles of wilderness between him and Cragg's Ridge.
Later, when the camp slept, Yellow Bird and Slim Buck and Jolly Roger still sat beside the red embers of their fire, and Jolly Roger told of what had happened down at the edge of civilization.