mooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top
through which the hand could be thrust to lift it.

The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the
wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed
it contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole
supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A
square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a
foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand.
Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one
corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a
tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung
above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of
white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly
washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left
to guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post
within the door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the
strangers. Jess, being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when
he went back to the beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched
his deft and work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and
scaled his spoil. He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman,
well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair
clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was
visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on
his partner, who followed Jess and stood also watching him.

"Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp
for?"

"Joe La France vas my old pardner," softly pleaded the German.

"Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll
get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for
guides."

"She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know
what to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her
bed. The old voman is too poor to keep her any more."

"I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long
is she going to stay?"

"I don't know," sheepishly responded his partner.

"A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of
cursed patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the
precious dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk dow