When his visitor rode away Ambrose turned with relief to his dog. The sight of Job's honest ugliness was good to him.

"He's a cur, Job!" he said strongly. "A snake in the gra.s.s! An oily scoundrel! I don't know how I know it, but I know it! A square man would have punched me the way I talked to him."

Job wagged his tail in entire approval of his master's judgment.

Ambrose turned in, feeling better for having spoken his mind.

Nevertheless, as he lay waiting for sleep it occurred to him that he had been somewhat hasty. After all, he had nothing to go on. And, supposing Strange were what he thought him, how foolish he, Ambrose, had been to show his band.

If he had been craftier he might have learned things of value for him to know. Following this unsatisfactory train of thought, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XI.

ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND FAMILY.

Again Ambrose was awakened by a furious barking from Job. It was even earlier than on the preceding morning. The sun was not up; the river was like a gray ghost.

Ambrose, expecting Tole, looked for a dugout. There was none in sight.

Job's agitated barks were addressed in the other direction.

Issuing from his tent, Ambrose beheld a quaint little man squatting on top of the bank like an image. He had an air of strange patience, as if he had been waiting for hours, and expected to wait.

His brown mask of a face changed not a line at the sight of Ambrose.

"What do you want?" demanded the white man.

"Please, I want spik wit' you," the little man softly replied.

"Come down here then," said Ambrose.

The early caller looked at Job apprehensively. Ambrose silenced the dog with a command, and the man came slowly down the bank, cringing a little.

The quaintness of aspect was largely due to the fact that he wore a coat and trousers originally designed for a tall, stout man. Ambrose suspected he had a child to deal with until he saw the wrinkles and the sophisticated eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I Alexander Selkirk, me," was the answer.

Ambrose could not but smile at the misapplication of the sonorous Scotch name to such a manikin.

"You Ambrose Doane?" the other said solemnly.

"Everybody seems to know me," said Ambrose.

Alexander stared at him with a sullen, walled, speculative regard, exactly, Ambrose thought, like a schoolboy facing an irate master, and wondering where the blow will fall.

To carry out this effect he was holding something inside his voluminous jacket, something that suggested contraband.

"What have you got there?" demanded Ambrose.

Without changing a muscle of his face, Alexander undid a b.u.t.ton and produced a gleaming black pelt.

Ambrose gasped. It was a beautiful black fox. Such a prize does not come a trader's way once in three seasons. The last black fox Minot & Doane had secured brought twelve hundred dollars in London--and it was not so fine a specimen as this.

l.u.s.trous, silky, black as anthracite; every hair in place, and not a white hair showing except the tuft at the end of the brush.

"Where did you get it?" Ambrose asked, amazed.

"I trap him, me, myself," said Alexander.

"When?"

"Las' Februar'."

"Are you offering it to me?" asked Ambrose, eying it desirously.

"'Ow much?" demanded Alexander, affecting a wall-eyed indifference.

Ambrose made a more careful examination. There was no doubt of it; the skin was perfect. He thrilled at the idea of returning with such a prize to his partner. He made a rapid calculation.

"Five hundred and fifty cash," he said. "Seven hundred fifty in trade."

A spark showed in Alexander's eyes.

"It is yours," he said.

"How can we make a trade?" asked Ambrose, perplexed. "John Gaviller would never honor any order of mine. I have no goods here to give you in trade."

"All right," said Alexander imperturbably. "I go to Moultrie to get goods."

"You, too," said Ambrose. "I can't import you all."

"I got go Moultrie, me," said Alexander. "I got trouble wit' Gaviller.

He starve me and my children. They sick."

"Starve you!"

"Gaviller say give no more debt till I bring him my black fox,"

Alexander went on apathetically. "Give no flour, no sugar, no meat, no tea. My brot'er feed us some. Gaviller say to him better not. So now we have nothing. We ongry."

This promised difficulties. Ambrose frowned. "Tell me the whole story," he said.

The little man was eying the grub-box wolfishly. Throwing back the cover, Ambrose offered him a cold bannock.

"Here," he said. "Eat and tell me."