“Non! Non!” said Moise; “not tired. She’ll been leetle boat, not over hondred-feefty poun’. I’ll make supper now, me.”
“It was best to bring both the boats in to-night,” said Alex, quietly, “and easier to start from here than to push in to the lake. We load here in the morning, and I think there’ll be plain sailing from here. It’s just as well to make a stream carry us and our boats whenever we can. It’s only a little way to the lake.”
“I thought you were never coming, Alex,” said Jesse, frankly, looking up from where he sat on his blanket roll, his chin in his hands.
The tall half-breed answered by gently putting a hand on the boy’s head, and making a better seat for him closer to the fire. Here he was close enough to watch Moise, now busy about his pots and pans.
“Those mosquito he’ll bite you some?” laughed Moise, as he saw the boys still slapping at their hands. “Well, bimeby he’ll not bite so much. She’ll be col’ here un the montaigne, bimeby.”
“I’m lumpy all over with them,” said John.
“It’s lucky you come from a country where you’re more or less used to them,” said Alex. “I’ve seen men driven wild by mosquitoes. But going down the river we’ll camp on the beaches or bars, where the wind will strike us. In two or three weeks we’ll be far enough along toward fall, so that I don’t think the mosquitoes will trouble us too much. You see, it’s the first of August now.”
“We can fix our tent to keep them out,” said Rob, “and we have bars and gloves, of course. But we don’t want to be too much like tenderfeet.”
“That’s the idea,” said Alex quietly. “You’ll not be tenderfeet when you finish this trip.”
“Her Onkle Deek, she’ll tol’ me something about those boy,” said Moise, from the fireside. “She’ll say she’s good boy, all same like man.”