While lovely Nepeese was still shuddering over her thrilling experience under the rock--while Pierrot still offered grateful thanks in his prayers for her deliverance and Baree was becoming more and more a fixture at the beaver pond--Bush McTaggart was perfecting a little scheme of his own up at Post Lac Bain, about forty miles north and west.

McTaggart had been factor at Lac Bain for seven years.

In the company's books down in Winnipeg he was counted a remarkably successful man.

The expense of his post was below the average, and his semiannual report of furs always ranked among the first.

After his name, kept on file in the main office, was one notation which said: "Gets more out of a dollar than any other man north of God's Lake." The Indians knew why this was so.