Jesse looked at Moise gravely, but did not smile at his queer way of speech, for by this time they had become better acquainted with both their guides.
“What I’ll tol’ you?” said Moise again a little later. “Here comes cool breeze from the hill. Now those mosquito he’ll hunt his home yas, heem! All right! We’ll eat supper ’fore long.”
Moise had put a pot of meat stew over the fire before he started back up the trail to bring in the canoe, when they first had come in with the packs. This he now finished cooking over the renewed fire, and by and by the odors arose so pleasantly that each boy sat waiting, his knife and fork on the tin plate in his lap. Alex, looking on, smiled quietly, but said nothing.
“Moise doesn’t build a fire just the way I’ve been taught,” said Rob, after a while.
“No,” added John. “I was thinking of that, too.”
“He’s Injun, same as me,” said Alex, smiling. “No white man can build a fire for an Injun. S’pose you ask me to put your hat on for you so you wouldn’t need to touch it. I couldn’t do that. You’d have to fix it a little yourself. Same way with Injun and his fire.”
“That’s funny,” said Rob. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” smiled Alex.
“He just throws the sticks together in a long heap and pushes the ends in when they burn through,” said Jesse. “He didn’t cut any wood at all.”