Two Rivers, Jake had shown the Indians his furs and Laughing Mary had seen the brown bear’s skin.
Indians have still so much of the child in them that, when they see something they greatly desire, they will barter away their last property on earth to gain possession of it. With just such longing did the woman covet the bear skin. Jake’s price was her husband’s help in his scheme against the Edmonds and that was the bargain they finally made. Certainly she had not realized fully what Jake had in mind, or known, when she lent herself to do his bidding, what she had really done.
Only when the days passed and the Edmonds boys did not come back, when she discovered, moreover, that Jake was withholding the bear skin and had no intention of really giving it to her, did she begin to see in the depths of her fumbling, clouded mind, what it was she had brought about. She had gained possession of the coveted skin by threatening to tell the whole truth to Hugh, as the Edmonds’ friend, and she had learned, from the consternation of both Jake
