He bore straight for Sam Carr's house. While still some distance away he made out two men seated on the porch. As he drew nearer a couple of nondescript dogs rushed noisily to meet him. Thompson's general unfamiliarity with the outdoor world extended to dogs. But he had heard sometime, somewhere, that it was well to put on a bold front with barking curs. He acted upon this theory, and the dogs kept their teeth out of his person, though their clamor rose unabated until one of the men harshly commanded them to be quiet. Thompson came up to the steps. The two men nodded. Their eyes rested upon him in frank curiosity.
"My name is Thompson." His diffidence, verging upon forthright embarrassment, precipitated him into abruptness. He was addressing the older man, a spare-built man with a trim gray beard and a disconcerting direct gaze. "I am a newcomer to this place. The factor of Fort Pachugan spoke of a Mr. Carr here. Have I—er—the—ah—pleasure of addressing that gentleman?"
Carr's gray eyes twinkled, the myriad of fine creases radiating from their outer corners deepened.
"MacLeod mentioned me, eh? Did he intimate that meeting me might prove a doubtful pleasure for a gentleman of your calling?"
That momentarily served to heighten Mr. Thompson's embarrassment—like a flank attack while he was in the act of waving a flag of truce. But he perceived that there was no malice in the words, only a flash of ironic humor. Carr chuckled dryly.
"Meet Mr. Tommy Ashe, Mr. Thompson," he said. "Mr. Ashe is, like yourself, a newcomer to Lone Moose. You may be able to exchange mutual curses on the country. People usually do at first."
"I've been hereabouts six months," Ashe smiled as he rose to shake hands. (Carr's friendliness seemed a trifle negative, reserved; he had not offered his hand.)
"That means newly come, as time is reckoned here," Carr remarked. "It takes at least a generation to make one permanent. Have a seat, Mr. Thompson. What do you think, so far, of the country you have selected for the scene of your operations?"
The slightly ironic inflection was not lost upon Thompson. It nettled him a little, but it was too intangible to be resented, and in any case he had no ready defence against that sort of thing. He took a third chair between the two of them and occupied himself a moment exterminating a few mosquitoes which had followed him from the grassy floor of the meadow and now slyly sought to find painful lodgment upon his face and neck.
"To tell the truth," he said at last, "everything is so different from my expectations that I find myself a bit uncertain. One finds—well—certain drawbacks."