Philip Boynton had seen two white men in a year and a half. He had arrived at the Split Falls post of the Hudson's Bay Company on the last ice of the spring, having been rushed in by a wise old district manager who saw in Phil's apparently mutinous demeanour merely the expression of a need of something difficult to do.<br><br>That difficult task, the routing of a particularly ingenious and energetic opposition, had kept Phil from going out with the fur brigade in the summer. He did not regret his non-attendance at the gathering of the post-managers at district headquarters because he was too actively engaged in the consummation of a plot bom of the devilishness of his own pent-up energy and enthusiasm.<br><br>As a result of this plot the too-ambitious Freetrader had been glad to accept Phil's offer of protection from a mysteriously enraged band of Indians and even more glad to get out of the country at the Hudson's Bay Company's expense.