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Anyhow, he determined to find out. "A good balance?" he asked carelessly. "I mean for an Indian," returned Stiffy quickly. "Nothing to speak of." Joe was unconvinced. He bided his time. The talk drifted on to other matters. Joe sat thrashing his brain for an expedient whereby he might get a sight of Musq'oosis's account on Stiffy's ledger.
A mob of red-faced children rushed to see me as I entered, and I heard one of them shouting up the stairs, "Oh, pa! there's a stiffy waiting to see you." The phrase was new to me. I looked for a mirror, to see whether any inaccuracy in my toilet might have suggested it. Positively there was no mirror in the salon.
On the fourth day thereafter the long tedium of existence in the settlement began to be broken in earnest. Before they could digest the flavour of one event, something else happened. In the afternoon word came down to Stiffy and Mahooley that the bishop had arrived at the French Mission, bringing the sister of the company trader's wife under his care.
Nevertheless, the French outfit was a factor to be reckoned with. There was no fur going now, and the astute Stiffy and Mahooley were content to let custom pass their door. Later on they would reach out for it. Mahooley was bored and querulous. This was the dullest of dull seasons, for the natives were off pitching on their summer grounds, and travel from the outside world had not yet started.
"What's the use?" he said. "I'll stay here and talk to Stiffy." When they had gone Joe still sat cudgelling his brain. He was not fertile in expedients. He was afraid to speak even indirectly of the matter on his breast for fear of alarming Stiffy by betraying too much eagerness. Finally an idea occurred to him. "I say, Stiffy, how does my account stand?" The trader told him his balance.
When Stiffy, having found the missing case, came downstairs again, Joe apparently had not moved. A while later Joe entered the company store, and addressed himself to Gilbert Beattie concerning a plough he said he was thinking of importing. Beattie, seeing a disposition in the other man to linger and talk, encouraged it. This was new business.
Stiffy and Mahooley were a pair of "good hard guys," but here the resemblance ended. Stiffy was dry, scanty-haired, mercantile; Mahooley was noisy, red-faced, of a fleshly temperament, and a wag, according to his lights. "I'd give a dollar for a new newspaper," growled Mahooley. "That's you, always grousin' for nothin' to do!" said his partner. "Why don't you keep busy like me?"
How it did hurt to pay for those hacks! I got there late with my girl she was a shy little conservatory student, who evidently regarded conversation as against the rules and I found the usual complications that had to be sorted out at the beginning of every class party. Stiffy Short was sore.
"What's the dope?" asked Sam curiously. "Stiffy and Mawoolie's York boat come to-day," said Musq'oosis conversationally. "Bring summer outfit. Plenty all kind goods. Bring newspapers three weeks old." "I heard all that," said Sam. "Mattison brought word around the bay." "There's measles in the Indians out Tepiskow Lake." Sam glanced sidewise at his passenger. "Is this what you wanted to tell me?"
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