effort. Although he had a good
education, he found that cooking suited him. He sat upon an overturned
bucket discoursing whimsically, while Mattawa Tom, who acted as
Thurston's foreman, peeled potatoes for him. The cook-shanty was warm
and snug, and Gillow made those to whom he granted the right of entry
work for the privilege.

"Strikes me as queer," said the big axeman, with a grin, when the cook
halted to refill his pipe. "Strikes me as queer, it does, that some of
you fellows who know so much kin do so little. Knowledge ain't worth a
cent unless you've got the rustle. Now there's the boss. You talk the
same talk, an' he can't well know more than you seem to do, but look
where he is, while you stop right down at the bottom running a
cook-shanty. Guess you were born tired, English Jim."

"I dare say you're right," answered Gillow. "Other folks in the Old
Country have said the same thing, though they didn't put it so neatly.
The fact is, some men, like Thurston, are born to wear themselves out
trying to manage things, while I was intended for philosophic
contemplation. He's occasionally hard to get on with, but since I came
here, I'm willing to acknowledge that men of his species are useful,
and I have struck harder masters in this great Dominion."

Mattawa Tom laughed hoarsely as he responded: "I should say! You found
him hard the day you ran black lines all over his drawings and nearly
burnt his shanty up, trying to prove he didn't know his business, when
you was brim-full of Red Pine whiskey."

"It was poison," said Gillow, with unruffled good humor. "Several
bottles of genuine whiskey would not confuse me, but I have sworn off
since the day you mention, partly to oblige Thurston, who seemed to
desire it, and because I can't get any decent liquor. But what do you
think of our latest acquisition?"

"He kin work, which is more than you could, before the boss taught
you," was the dry answer. "But there's something odd about him. You
saw the outfit he came in with? Couldn't have swapped it with a Siwash
Indian--well, the man has better clothes than you or I on underneath,
and if he was so blame hard up, what did he offer Jake five dollars for
his old gum boots for?"

"Afraid of wetting his feet. Most sensible person, considering the
weather," remarked Gillow, indifferently.

"'Fraid of wetting his feet! This is just where horse sense beats
knowledge. That fellow is scared of nothing around th