All the boys looked at him with much curiosity. He was apparently of middle age, with a tangled beard and black hair that straggled down almost to his shoulders. He wore moccasins, Mackinaw trousers shiny with blood and grease, a buckskin jacket, and a flannel shirt. He was brown as any Ojibwa, and he, carried a repeating rifle and had a belt of cartridges at his waist.
"Hunting?" he asked presently, with a nod at the deerskin that was hanging to dry.
"Now and again," said Horace.
"Well, ye can't hunt here," said the man deliberately, after a pause. "Don't ye know that this is a Government forest reserve? No hunters allowed. Ye'll have to be out of here by to-morrow."
CHAPTER XI
The boys were thunderstruck at the stranger's assertion. They knew of several forest reserves in northern Ontario where timber and game are closely protected, but they had never heard of one in this district.
"I guess you're wrong," said Horace. "There isn't any Government reserve north of Timagami."
"Made last fall," the stranger retorted. "I ought to know. I'm one of the rangers. We've got a camp up the river, and we've been here all winter to keep out hunters and lumbermen."
Horace looked at him closely, but said nothing.