It was his ambition to catch an ermine; he explained to Edevart how ermine was used for trimming the robes of royalty. But these shy animals were rare and difficult to get.

Time passed. Daily they worked on the skins. They spread them out on walls or hung them stretched on stakes to dry in the wind; and when they dried out, they were sorted and bundled. By the time the crews had returned from the Lofotens in the spring, the two partners had a mass of skins stowed away in barns and lofts which had become emptied of hay. They had no ermine; but one day when the ice had melted and they were rowing out to shoot seabirds, they were lucky enough to shoot a seal—a rare visitor to the bay. That was a good skin.

People shook their heads over August’s fur business. “Don’t you want to buy any mouseskins as well?” young Teodor asked scornfully. At all events, August’s speculation was new and untried in these parts; and when he tried to hire an eight-oar boat to transport his skins, Karolus (who owned the boat) replied that he ought to give up the idea since the trip wouldn’t even pay for the hire! But August knew what he was doing. He had bought each skin for next to nothing; moreover, he had been in touch with the great leather firm of Klem, Hansen & Co. in Trondheim—the one known all over Nordland by the round stamp on their blue-tinged, oak-tanned shoe leather. From them August had got precise instructions. Klem, Hansen & Co. were to come north this summer and operate a stand at the Stokmarknes Fair. It was there that August was to deliver his goods. But he had no boat.

August was made to feel the general hostility. Now there were other young men who had returned from the Lofotens with money in their pockets and goods of various kinds. As for August, he only had skins in barns and lofts around the place and had presumably spent all his money on these.

The day the eight-oar Lofoten boat was due to be laid up in the boathouse till next winter, August again expressed a wish to hire it. But the owner refused. He used the excuse that it was a new and expensive boat; he hadn’t even paid for it all yet, and still owed for the equipment, the sails, the rigging, the anchor. August walked away a few steps, returned, and said: “Will you sell the boat?”

“Sell it? Are you perhaps thinking of buying it?”

“Yes,” said August.

Karolus gaped. “Ha! Buy it?”

Edevart was standing near. He too gaped.

But when the man heard that August was still well enough off to be able to buy an eight-oar boat and all its gear, it gave him something to think about, something that took him around to all the cottages. The whole village talked it over; and once again August wiped the floor with the other young men of the district. Damn it, was this returned sailor lad made of money? The boat owner became amenable. He went himself to August and said: “I can’t part with my eight-oar. It’s all I have to live on. But I’ll rent it to you if you like.”

“No, I’d rather buy it,” August answered, bridling.

Karolus said mildly: “Can’t be done.”

They discussed it up and down. What would August do with an eight-oar boat once the trip was over?

He would dispose of it at the fair.

“It’s a long time to winter and the Lofotens fishing,” said Karolus. “You’ll not sell a big boat like that in summer.”

No, August admitted it might be difficult.