A quarter of an hour later two vigorous young men swung into camp, lowered the canoes from their heads and shoulders, carried the strapped kits, poles and paddles into the lean-to, and turned the light crafts bottom up as flanking shelters to headquarters.
"No use fishing; that thunder is spoiling the Caranay," muttered Ellis, moving about and setting the camp in order. "This is a fine lean-to," he added; "it's big enough for a regiment."
"I told you I was an architect," said Jones, surveying the open-faced shanty with pride. "I had nothing else to do, so I spent the time in making this. I'm a corker on the classic. Shall I take an axe and cut some wood in the Ionic or Doric style?"
Ellis, squatting among the provisions, busily bringing order out of chaos, told him what sort of wood to cut; and an hour later, when the echoing thwacks of the axe ceased and Jones came in loaded with firewood, the camp was in order; hambones, stale bedding, tin cans, the heads and spinal processes of trout had been removed, dishes polished, towels washed and drying, and a pleasant aroma of balsam tips mingled with the spicy scent of the fire.
"Whew!" said Jones, sniffing; "it smells pleasant now."
"Your camp," observed Ellis, "had all the fragrance of a dog-fox in March. How heavy the air is. Listen to that thunder! There's the deuce to pay on the upper waters of the Caranay by this time."
"Do you think we'll get it?"
"Not the rain and wind; the electrical storms usually swing off, following the Big Oswaya. But we may have a flood." He arose and picked up his rod. "The thunder has probably blanked me, but if you'll tend camp I'll try to pick up some fish in a binnikill I know of where the trout are habituated to the roar of the fork falls. We may need every fish we can get if the flood proves a bad one."
Jones said it would suit him perfectly to sit still. He curled up close enough to the fire for comfort as well as æsthetic pleasure, removed his eyeglasses, fished out a flask of aromatic mosquito ointment, and solemnly began a facial toilet, in the manner of a comfortable house cat anointing her countenance with one paw.
"Ellis," he said, blinking up at that young man very amiably, "it would be agreeable to see a little more of—of Miss Sandys; wouldn't it? And the other——"