"Rosenblatt!" The word shot from the stranger's lips with the vehemence of a bullet from a rifle. "Rosenblatt in her house! S-s-s-o-o-o!" He thrust his face forward into the speaker's with a long hissing sound, so fiercely venomous that the man fell back a pace. Quickly the stranger recovered himself. "Look you, brothers, I need a room for a few days, anywhere, a small room, and I can pay well."
"My house," said the man named Joseph, "is yours, but there are six men with me."
Quickly the other took it up. "My poor house is small, two children, but if the Elder brother would accept?"
"I will accept, my friend," said the stranger. "You shall lose nothing by it." He took up the bag that he had placed beside him on the platform, saying briefly, "Lead the way."
"Your pardon, brother," said Simon, taking the bag from him, "this is the way."
Northward across the railway tracks and up the street for two blocks, then westward they turned, toward the open prairie. After walking some minutes, Simon pointed to a huddling group of shacks startlingly black against the dazzling snow.
"There," he cried with a laugh, "there is little Russia."
"Not Russia," said Joseph, "Galicia."
The stranger stood still, gazing at the little shacks, and letting his eye wander across the dazzling plain, tinted now with crimson and with gold from the setting sun, to the horizon. Then pointing to the shacks he said, "That is Canada. Yonder," sweeping his hand toward the plain, "is Siberia. But," turning suddenly upon the men, "what are you?"
"We are free men," said Joseph. "We are Canadians."