think we'd better act as if
we didn't suspect anything, only let him see we are here. Perhaps he'll
go away in the morning, but I don't believe that he's heading for the
post, because there's been bad blood between him and the old factor for
a long while; and I guess Mr. Gregory is the only man in all these parts
Stackpole really has respect for."

All of this Owen muttered into the ear of his comrade, meanwhile keeping
his eyes fastened upon the burly figure squatted in the camp beside the
genial fire, and noting how often Stackpole's glance wandered
suspiciously toward them, as if the fellow wondered what he, Owen, might
be telling the young fellow, whom he had already decided, if he did not
know it before, to be the ruling spirit of the expedition, and who
evidently held the purse, a very important consideration in the mind of
a man like the said Stackpole.

"Yes, when you get good and ready to tell me I'd consider it a privilege
to know something more of your life here, old chap; and if anything I
can do will be of benefit, you understand that you're as welcome to it
as the sunlight after a week of rain," pursued Cuthbert; at which the
other, overcome with emotion (for he had led a lonely life and never
knew what it was to have the counsel of a genuine friend) and unable to
express his feelings in words, simply allowed his hand to creep along
the keel of the cedar canoe until it met that of the generous-hearted
Cuthbert, when his fingers were intertwined with those of his new chum;
nor were these latter loth to meet him half-way.

There was a whole world of words in that eloquent handgrip, for soul
spoke to soul; and the communion of interests that had been slowly
drawing them together ever since their strange meeting was cemented then
and there.

They busied themselves around the boats for a short time, more to make
it appear that they had really sought the spot with the intention of
fixing things cozily for the night than because there was need of their
labor; and during the minutes that elapsed Cuthbert managed to ask
numerous questions about Stackpole, for when he learned from Owen that
in times past this fellow and the halfbreed Dubois, from whom he had
secured the unreliable chart, had been boon companions, a disturbing
thought was born in his mind that possibly there might have been more of
design than accident in the coming of the timber-cruiser on this night.

The peace and charm that had up to this pe