"Yes, if you please--all but the canoe. I'll paddle that over, if you'll send a man to help me launch it."
"Pooh!" thought Shad, as the steward left him. "'Hard knocks and short grub'! Of course there would be some hard knocks, but he expected that, for he was going to rough it! But with the woods full of game and fish there'd be plenty to eat! He didn't expect any Pullman-car jaunt; he could have had that at home. What kind of a fellow did the steward take him for, anyway?"
A half-dozen natives on the boat wharf watched Shad curiously as he paddled to a low stretch of beach adjoining the wharf, and two of them strolled down to inspect his canoe when he lifted it out of the water and turned it upon its side at a safe distance above the lapping waves.
"Now she's what I calls a rare fine canoe," observed one, a tall, big-boned, loose-jointed fellow with a straggly red beard, and picturesquely attired in moleskin trousers tucked into the tops of sealskin boots, a flannel shirt, a short jacket, and the peakless cap of the trapper.
"That she be, Ed, an' a wonderful sight better'n th' bark canoes th' Injuns uses," agreed the other, a powerful, broad-shouldered, deep-chested man, who wore a light-cloth adicky, but whose dress was otherwise similar to that of his companion.
"She have better lines than th' Injun craft," said the one addressed as Ed, eyeing the canoe critically.
"An' she's stancher--a wonderful lot stancher," continued the other.
"She is a pretty good canoe, and a splendid white-water craft," Shad remarked, to break the ice of reserve, and to give the two trappers the opening for conversation for which they were evidently hedging.
"Aye, sir," said the man in the adicky, "they's no doot o' that. Her lines be right, sir. She'd be a fine craft in th' rapids, now--a fine un."
"Be you comin' far, an' be you goin' back wi' th' ship?" asked Ed, unable to restrain his curiosity longer.
"I came from Boston, and if I can get a guide I shall stay for the summer and take a canoe trip into the country," answered Shad.