At noon he didn’t want to get up. He wouldn’t have wanted to rise with fifteen hours of sleep, but with just four, he almost couldn’t get up. Mr. Grimes dumped cold water on his face and he did get up, sputtering, and after a little fresh venison, they started again.

Francis lost all track of time. It didn’t seem possible to him that human beings could live and work on such an insane schedule. Work at midnight, go to bed at dawn. Get up in four hours and work some more. Ride out with traps and bait sticks, come back with dead, wet beaver. Skin and stretch. Sleep. Eat while you worked, while you rode. Set traps. Close your eyes for what seemed like a second, then open them and work again.

Finally, Mr. Grimes stopped. Five days could have passed, or maybe five years—Francis didn’t know. All he knew was that two hundred beaver pelts were hanging and drying inside the house. It was impossible not to know that, for their stench was overpowering.

“We sleep now, Mr. Tucket, as long as we want,” the trapper said, grinning. Francis was standing in front of him, almost falling down. “The pelts have to dry for a week at least. I’ll wake you at the end of the week.”

Oh, no, you won’t, Francis thought, grabbing his buffalo robe and heading upwind of the building. Not in a week. I won’t even be started catching up in a week. Wake me in January sometime, or maybe next spring. Better yet, don’t ever wake me.

——— Chapter Seventeen ———

THE WEEK OF IDLE RESTING that Mr. Grimes had promised Francis never took place, but it wasn’t the mountain man’s fault.

What happened to ruin the week was the sudden arrival of more “company.” But this time, the company didn’t consist of friends of Jason Grimes. They arrived on the third day after all the pelts had been hung to dry.

Contrary to what he had thought, Francis didn’t sleep even for a day. After ten hours of solid snoring, he was up gathering wood. And by the second day, he was practically bored stiff.

“Don’t fret on so much, Mr. Tucket,” the trapper said when Francis began grumbling. “A man would think you wanted to go back to work. Rest up a mite. There’ll be plenty to do.”

Francis snorted. “I wouldn’t even mind some more trapping. It’s better than just sitting around, getting soft.”

“Ah, Mr. Tucket, relax. Trap more beaver and you’d just have to sit around for another week. These things take time.”

So Francis had dreamed up things to do. He made bullets—when he already had enough to stand off a small army. He took to riding around the meadow along the stream, not going anywhere in particular, just riding.