Francis didn’t ask any more questions. Instead he got the house up, back in the trees along the meadow, and Mr. Grimes finished his count just in time to help with the last poles on the roof. Then they put up a small pole corral for the horses and mules, and when that was finished, they moved in. Now, Mr. Grimes explained, there was nothing to do but wait.

“It’s like this, Mr. Tucket,” he said. “There are two times to trap beaver. In late fall and early spring. In the fall, you catch them when their coats are turning prime—getting ready for the cold. In the spring, you catch them before they lose their winter pelts. Now I prefer to catch them in the fall—and I’ll let you guess why.”

Francis thought for a minute, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Is the market better?”

“True, but that’s not really why. If you take a mother beaver in the spring, you might take her just after she’s had young. You not only trap the mother, but kill the young because you take away their milk. If I take her in the fall, her babies—the kits—haven’t even started yet and I only kill one beaver—”

“But what’s the difference?” Francis interrupted. “I mean, she’s still gone, and she still can’t have the kits.”

“Right. But beaver mate up in the fall, and they mate for life. If I trap a female in the fall, the male that would have mated with her goes on and finds another. It all works out, Mr. Tucket, it all works out.”

Francis thought about it, nodded, then asked, “When do we get started?”

“About two weeks after the first cold snap, when their pelts firm up. I figure down here, in the bottorn of this canyon, we ought to see some cold before long.”

It was true, Francis knew. Most of the aspens had taken on a golden hue, and the scrub oaks were already losing some leaves. The days were still warm but the nights had a way of turning cold, and moving out in the morning from beneath the warm buffalo robe Mr. Grimes had given him got harder each day. Also, the fact that there was little to do made it hard to get up.

Francis found you either had too much to do, or nothing. When there was nothing, his thoughts turned always to his mother and father, and he wondered how they were doing in Oregon. He missed them, but for some strange reason, he missed Rebecca more. She had always been sort of a nuisance to him, following him when he wanted to be alone, asking him dumb questions—this made him smile when he thought of some of the questions he asked Mr. Grimes—and yet he missed her.