“By no means,” said the stranger, smiling. “I think the disposition to be quarrelsome is more on your side. I merely asked you a few plain questions, such as you would have asked me if our positions had been reversed. Suppose you had marked down a deer, being a resident here, and came out for it and found a stranger—”
“Poaching,” said Gunson, mockingly.
“No; we have no game laws here, sir—had bagged your deer, and when you came up to him, wishing to be civil, and offer him the hospitality one Englishman should offer to another in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, he cut up rough with you, as I think, on consideration, you must own you have done with me. What then?”
I glanced from one to the other, ready to appeal to Gunson, for he seemed to me to be horribly in the wrong.
There was a great difference in them, and it seemed to me to be very marked just then; the stranger so tall, commanding, and dignified, in spite of his rough hunting-dress, his eyes keen and flashing, and his well-cut features seeming noble by comparison with Gunson’s, whose care-lined and disfigured face, joined with his harsh, abrupt way, made him quite repellent.
But just as I was anticipating quite an explosion of anger, I saw his face change, and grow less lurid. He looked frankly in the stranger’s face, took off his hat, and I felt that it was a gentleman speaking, as, in quite an altered tone, he said simply—
“I beg your pardon. I was quite in the wrong.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the stranger, “that is enough;” and he held out his hand. “There’s a ring of dear old England and good society in that, sir. Welcome to these wilds. It is a treat to have a visitor who can talk about the old country. It’s many years since I have seen it. And you?”
“Oh, we were there seven or eight months ago,” said Gunson, quietly; and as we walked on, and our new friend plied him with questions about London, the Government, and the changes that had taken place, always carefully avoiding any allusions to the object of our visit to the north-west land, it seemed to me that I was listening to quite a different man to the rough prospector, and I fancied that the stranger was noticing that Gunson was not the sort of man he seemed.
It was so pleasant to listen to the converse of these two gentlemanly, well-informed speakers, that the distance seemed quite short back to where Esau was lying down idly throwing stones in the river, while Quong had the kettle boiling, and, as soon as he caught sight of us, came running up to seize upon one of the packs of deer-meat, and trot off with it.