Rose sells the hides to a fur trader

Rose sells the hides to a fur trader in an act that is at once a practical exchange and a consequential break with Phil Burbank’s intentions. The transaction gives Rose cash she can hold herself, while depriving Phil of the hides he expected to burn. When Phil discovers their absence, his anger makes the sale a point of conflict; Peter Gordon’s offer to help with the rope then turns the moment toward renewed closeness between the men.

The Offer and Rose’s Decision

The fur trader asks whether Rose has old hides, then offers thirty dollars for them. Rose first answers as though the sum is reasonable and tells him to make the check out to her husband. The pause that follows matters: she grips the chair and asks whether she has spoken, then recognizes that Phil is the one who burns the hides and decides that he should receive the check instead. Her changing instructions show her weighing the sale not only as a way to dispose of the hides but as a decision about who should control its proceeds.

Rose then changes course again. If the check might go uncashed or be burned, she reasons, cash would be more useful. She asks the trader to pay her directly in bills. The shifts—from her husband, to Phil, and finally to herself—give the exchange its tension: Rose begins by treating the money as something to be assigned to someone else, then chooses to keep its value immediately within her own reach.

Money and Limited Independence

The cash has particular significance in Rose’s household. When she goes shopping, George Burbank usually gives her ten or twenty dollars, while charge accounts cover her other purchases. The narration distinguishes purchases she makes with cash, including at the drugstore and at a vine-covered place. Against that pattern, the thirty dollars is not simply a sum agreed upon with a trader: it is money Rose has obtained through her own decision, outside the routine George’s allowance establishes.

Her response remains divided. After the trader bows and leaves, Rose feels an urge to follow him, call out, or return the money, but she does not. The bills give her a precious sense of security. She grips the chair and watches the truck leave the house, turn, and rumble across the pole bridge toward the butcher pen. Her hesitation and her relief coexist; the sale gives her something she needs, even as she recognizes that the hides have been taken from Phil’s intended control.

Phil Discovers the Hides Are Gone

Phil notices the missing hides long before he and the others ride past the butcher pen. The narration emphasizes his photographic memory: details remain fixed in his mind, and the empty place registers as a conspicuous change. His response is immediate anger. He calls attention to the fact that every hide is gone and says Rose has put her foot into it again. For him, the sale is not an unnoticed household transaction but an act that directly frustrates his plan to burn the hides.

The encounter also exposes how differently Rose and Phil understand the hides. Rose has converted them into cash; Phil sees their disappearance as a violation of what he meant to do with them. The sale therefore changes more than ownership. It sharpens the existing hostility between them and places Peter, who is present when Phil reacts, in a position to affect what follows.

Peter’s Intervention and the Sale’s Aftermath

After Phil complains, Peter touches his arm and tells him that he has rawhide to finish the rope. The gesture and offer shift Phil’s attention from Rose’s action toward the work the two have been sharing. Phil calls the offer kind, puts his arm around Peter’s shoulders, promises that things will be clear sailing for him, and says he will finish the rope that night. Peter watches him complete it, despite Phil’s freshly wounded hand.

The sale does not undo the disagreement or erase Phil’s anger. Instead, it becomes the immediate setting for a different exchange: Rose has taken the hides out of Phil’s reach, while Peter offers the rawhide that allows Phil to continue the rope and reassures him through an act of assistance. The episode thus links Rose’s need for money, Phil’s possessive response to the missing hides, and Peter’s growing influence over Phil. Its decisive consequence is not a settlement between Rose and Phil, but a renewed bond between Phil and Peter at a moment when their conflict might have widened.