a ball of Canadian and American notes, crushed and tangled
together like papers of no value. He smoothed them out, flattening them
upon his knee one by one, and, having counted them over, rolled them up
tidily, and thrust them to the bottom of the brown bag. Next, he began
to untie the cords which fastened the canvas bale, muttering 'Damn the
thing!' at intervals, as the knots refused to yield to his unskilful
handling. Finally, when the work was two-thirds done, he made search
for a pen-knife, and, having found it, severed the remaining knots, and
threw the cords away into the runnel.

'That's emblematic,' he said. 'Anything's emblematic if you're on the
look-out for emblems.'

The canvas bale, being unrolled, displayed a bundle of gray blankets;
a tent-pole, jointed like a fishing-rod, and in three pieces; an axe; a
leather gun-case; a small gridiron; a small frying-pan; a tin quart pot,
close-packed with loose cartridges; and a pair of folding trestles and
a folding board for the construction of a little table. The canvas in
which all these things had been packed afforded material for a tent,
and the Solitary, with a seeming custom and alertness which no man
would have argued from his aspect of an hour ago, began to set up his
abiding-place in the narrow natural clearing he had chosen.

In a while everything was tidy and ship-shape, and when he had made a
fire, and had constructed a tripod of branches from which to hang the
quart pot, newly filled with water from the sparkling runnel near at
hand, the lonely man sat down and smoked again, letting his eyes rove
here and there, and seeming to scan the scene before him with a dreamy
interest. The pot boiled over, and the hissing of the wet embers awoke
him from his contemplations. The brown portmanteau, being opened, proved
to be filled with packets of provisions of various kinds. He made tea,
broke into a tin of sardines and a packet of hard biscuits, and then sat
munching and sipping, with his feet stretched wide apart, and his back
against a tree--a picture of unthinking idleness.

A rustle near at hand awoke attention, and he rolled his head lazily
on one shoulder. The rustle drew nearer yet, and round the bend of the
trail came a man in moleskin trousers, a gray shirt, and a shapeless
felt hat, which seemed to have no colour but those lent to it by years
of sun and rain.

'Hillo, mate!' said the new man.

'Hillo!' said the camper-out.

'Come here by the las