"We left the boys some distance back. There was not much shelter at the camp and although they were satisfied, we resolved to follow the line and try to find a shack. The boys will, no doubt, arrive in the morning."
Jim nodded, because a line was cut through the forest for the telegraph wires.
"You ran some risk. If you camped at sundown, it's a while since you had supper. I can give you coffee and a hot bannock."
He put the kettle on the fire and when the meal was over studied his guests as they lighted their pipes. One was about thirty years old, and in spite of his ragged clothes, Jim thought him a man with cultivated tastes and wide experience. The other was young and looked frank. He had a refined, intelligent face and was like the girl whom Jim had seen at the restaurant; she was, perhaps, a relation. For a time the strangers talked about their journey and then one looked at Jim rather hard.
"Haven't I seen you before?"
Jim smiled. "At Cibbley's as you go to the new post-office at Montreal."
"Oh, yes! It was a very well-served lunch," said the other and picked up the French romance. "A curious book, but rather fine in parts. Do you understand the fellow?"
"On the whole. I like him; you feel he has a grip. Still he's puzzling now and then."
"These French' writers are puzzling; always trying to work off an epigram," the younger man remarked. "However, I suppose there's as much French as English spoken at Montreal and Quebec."
"Not French like this," the other said with a smile. "I doubt if an up-to-date boulevardier would own it for his mother's tongue. You would be surprised if you heard our Cumberland farmers use Chaucer's English."