The future held fascinations for him.

He bought nothing for his own pleasure or comfort, nothing which could not be sold or bartered again.

He married a woman who was a trader's daughter and shared his passion for gain.

She was of North of England blood, her father having been a hard-fisted small tradesman in an unimportant town, who had been daring enough to emigrate when emigration meant the facing of unknown dangers in a half-savage land.

She had excited Reuben Vanderpoel's admiration by taking off her petticoat one bitter winter's day to sell it to a squaw in exchange for an ornament for which she chanced to know another squaw would pay with a skin of value.