But in the morning she arose very much afraid, and went about her
duties in momentary fear of her father's coming. As the day wore
along, however, she began to recover her spirits. John Fox,
soundly berating McLean and McTavish for some petty dereliction of
duty, helped her to pluck up courage. She tried not to let him go
out of her sight, and when she followed him into the huge cache and
saw him twirling and tossing great bales around as though they were
feather pillows, she felt strengthened in her disobedience to her
father. Also (it was her first visit to the warehouse, and Sin
Rock was the chief distributing point to several chains of lesser
posts), she was astounded at the endlessness of the wealth there
stored away.
This sight and the picture in her mind's eye of the bare lodge of
Snettishane, put all doubts at rest. Yet she capped her conviction
by a brief word with one of her step-sons. "White daddy good?" was
what she asked, and the boy answered that his father was the best
man he had ever known. That night the raven croaked again. On the
night following the croaking was more persistent. It awoke the
Factor, who tossed restlessly for a while. Then he said aloud,
"Damn that raven," and Lit-lit laughed quietly under the blankets.
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