They stood very still for several seconds gazing at one another, and then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied that he recognised the language. He made a sign that it was still beyond his comprehension, and the stranger tried again. This time it was French he spoke.
"You can come forward, comrade," he said.
He did not seem to be hostile, and Wyllard, who tossed his rifle into the hollow of his left arm, moved out to meet him a pace or two.
"You are Russian?" he said, in the language the other had used, for French of a kind is freely spoken in parts of Canada.
The man laughed. "That afterwards," he answered. "It is said so. My name is Overweg—Albrecht Overweg. As to you, it appears you do not understand Russian."
Wyllard drew a little nearer, and sat down upon a boulder. Now the tension had somewhat slackened his weariness had once more become almost insupportable, and he felt that he might need his strength and senses. In the meanwhile he was somewhat bewildered by the encounter, for it was certainly astonishing to fall in with a man who spoke three civilised languages and wore spectacles in that desolate wilderness.
"No," he said, "it is almost the first time I have heard it."
"Ah," said the other, "there is a certain significance in that admission, my friend. It is permissible to inquire where you have come from, and what you are doing here?"
Wyllard, who had no desire to give him any information upon the latter point, pointed towards the east.
"That is where I come from. As to my business, at the moment you will excuse me. It is perhaps not a rudeness to ask what is yours?"