Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/91

 as the ice hadn't formed yet, and we made the most of it by water.

"Tib's object in going there was to arrange for a lifelike replica of a fur-trading station for one of the big expositions. He had been commissioned to do this stunt on the side, and the last steamer in at Tuvak had brought us letters to all the company's agents and factors. Once known that we'd never been in jail and could be trusted in a plumber's shop, coupled with Tib's reputation as a belt-lifter, our course to Mosquito Bay was made smooth and gracious and covered amid the hearty applause of densely whiskered men all along the route. At the inlet we waited two days for the company's bay steamer to pick us up and hustle us across several hundred tedious miles to the Swamp House. Here we were to arrange for a fur exhibit, a posse of trappers and hunters and a parcel of natives.

"Well, I'm glad now the old chap and I went through with the pending experience, as it gives another helping of food for reflection, and warms my heart once again as in my mind's eye I see him leading a little crusade along the lonely course of the Fried Fish River. Sometime I'll show you a bit of mediæval armor that figured in that predicament. When the full beauty of the act has filtered in I reckon you'll concede that all the Carnegie