question he had stepped from his friend's cabin up in the Indian
village, and after lighting a perfectly round and rather yellow cigar,
he had instinctively wandered down to the Hudson Bay store, there to
find himself amused by a strange sight.

The Abwees had hired two French-Indian voyagers of sinister mien, and a
Scotch-Canadian boy bred to the bush. They were out on the grass,
engaged in taking burlaps off three highly polished canoes, while the
clerk from the store ran out and asked questions about "how much bacon,"
and, "will fifty pounds of pork be enough, sir?"

The round yellow cigar was getting stubby, while Jimmie's modest eyes
sought out the points of interest in the new-comers, when he was
suddenly and sharply addressed:

"Can you cook?"

Jimmie couldn't do anything in a hurry, except chop a log in two, paddle
very fast, and shoot quickly, so he said, as was his wont:

"I think--I dun'no'--"

"Well, how much?" came the query.

"Two daul--ars--" said Jimmie.

The transaction was complete. The yellow butt went over the fence, and
Jimmie shed his coat. He was directed to lend a hand by the bustling
sportsmen, and requested to run and find things of which he had never
before in his life heard the name.

[Illustration: 42 THE LAWYER HAD BECOME A VOYAGER]

After two days' travel the Abwees were put ashore--boxes, bags, rolls of
blankets, canoes, Indians, and plunder of many sorts--on a pebbly beach,
and the steamer backed off and steamed away. They had reached the
"beyond" at last, and the odoriferous little bedrooms, the bustle of the
preparation, the cares of their lives, were behind. Then there was a
girding up of the loins, a getting out of tump-lines and canvas packs,
and the long portage was begun.

The voyagers carried each two hundred pounds as they stalked away into
the wilderness, while the attorney-at-law "hefted" his pack, wiped his
eyeglasses with his pocket-handkerchief, and tried cheerfully to assume
the responsibilities of "a dead game sport."

"I cannot lift the thing, and how I am going to carry it is more than I
know; but I'm a dead game sport, and I am going to try. I do not want to
be dead game, but it looks as though I couldn't help it. Will some
gentleman help me to adjust this cargo?"

The night overtook the outfit in an old beaver meadow half-way through
the trail. Like all first camps, it was tough. The lean-to tents went up
awkwardly. No one could find anything. Late at