ainst our being ordered about. But I did not hesitate,
helping Gunson to get his two chests and packing-case into the house,
when he frankly enough came and helped in with ours.

The people did not seem disposed to be very friendly; but rough as the
shed-like house was, everything seemed clean, and they were ready to
supply us with some cake-like, heavy bread, and a glowing fire composed
of pine-roots and great wedge-like chips, evidently the result of
cutting down trees.

"Rather rough, Squire Gordon," said Gunson, with a laugh, as he saw me
sitting disconsolate and tired on the end of my chest; "but you'll have
it worse than this. What do you say to camping out in the forest with
no cover but a blanket, and the rain coming down in sheets? you'd think
this a palace then."

"I was not complaining," I said, trying to be brisk.

"Not with your lips, my lad, but you looked as if you'd give anything to
be back in London."

"Oh, we ain't such cowards as that," said Esau shortly.

At that moment the wife of the settler, who called himself in red
letters a hotel-keeper, came toward us with a large tin pot like a
saucepan with a loose wire cross handle.

"Here's a kettle," she said, in rather an ill-used tone; "and there's a
tub o' water for drinking outside. Got any tea?"

"Yes, thank you," said Gunson, good-humouredly. "We shall do now."

The woman left us, and Gunson turned to me.

"Well, squire," he said, "what have you got in the commissariat
department?"

"Some bread and cold ham," I replied.

"Oh, but we must have some hot. I've done better than you," he said,
laughing, and taking out of a wallet a piece of raw bacon, which he laid
upon the rough board table, and then a tin canister. "Now then, Esau,
my lad, let's see you cut that in slices, while I make some tea ready.
Gordon, will you go and fill the kettle half full?"

He spoke so briskly and cheerily that I hardly knew the man again, and
his words had so good an effect upon me, that I soon had the kettle
filled and seated in the midst of the cheery blaze; while Esau was
cutting up the bacon, and Gunson was heating and cleaning a bent
gridiron, that had been made by binding some pieces of thick wire a
little distance apart.

"Now then, Dean," he said, "can you cook that bacon?"

Esau laughed scornfully.

"Do you hear that?" he said, turning to me. "Why, I've cooked bacon and
bloaters at home hundreds of times."

"Good!" cried Gunson. "The