“I say, that was beautifully done,” he cried, taking the nose of the canoe while the man stepped ashore and stood a moment looking back at the water.
“A leetle more to the left would have been better, I think. She took some water,” he remarked in a slow voice, as if to himself.
He was a strange-looking creature. He might have stepped out of one of Fenimore Cooper's novels. Indeed, as Barry's eyes travelled up and down his long, bony, stooping, slouching figure, his mind leaped at once to the Pathfinder.
“Come far?” asked Duff, approaching the stranger.
“Quite a bit,” he answered, in a quiet, courteous voice, pausing a moment in his work.
“Going out?” enquired Duff.
“Not yet,” he said. “Going up the country first to The Post.”
“Ah, we have just come down from there,” said Duff. “We started yesterday morning,” he added, evidently hoping to surprise the man.
“Yes,” he answered in a quiet tone of approval. “Nice little run! Nice little run! Bit of a hurry, I guess,” he ventured apologetically.
“You bet your life, we just are. This damned war makes a man feel like as if the devil was after him,” said Duff.