of a parson.”  He had, however, one objection to Defago, and one only—­which was, that the French Canadian sometimes exhibited what Hank described as “the output of a cursed and dismal mind,” meaning apparently that he sometimes was true to type, Latin type, and suffered fits of a kind of silent moroseness when nothing could induce him to utter speech.  Defago, that is to say, was imaginative and melancholy.  And, as a rule, it was too long a spell of “civilization” that induced the attacks, for a few days of the wilderness invariably cured them.

This, then, was the party of four that found themselves in camp the last week in October of that “shy moose year” ’way up in the wilderness north of Rat Portage—­a forsaken and desolate country.  There was also Punk, an Indian, who had accompanied Dr. Cathcart and Hank on their hunting trips in previous years, and who acted as cook.  His duty was merely to stay in camp, catch fish, and prepare venison steaks and coffee at a few minutes’ notice.  He dressed in the worn-out clothes bequeathed to him by former patrons, and, except for his coarse black hair and dark skin, he looked in these city garments no more like a real redskin than a stage Negro looks like a real African.  For all that, however, Punk had in him still the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and his endurance survived; also his superstition.

The party round the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a week had passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself.  Defago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in bad humor, reminded him so often that “he kep’ mussing-up the fac’s so, that it was ‘most all nothin’ but a petered-out lie,” that the Frenchman had finally subsided into a sulky silence which nothing seemed likely to break.  Dr. Cathcart and his nephew were fairly done after an exhausting day.  Punk was washing up the dishes, grunting to himself under the lean-to of branches, where he later also slept.  No one troubled to stir the slowly dying fire.  Overhead the stars were brilliant in a sky quite wintry, and there was so little wind that ice was already forming stealthily along the shores of the still lake behind them.  The silence of the vast listening forest stole forward and enveloped them.

Hank broke in suddenly with his nasal voice.

“I’m in favor of breaking new ground tomorrow, Doc,” he observed with energy, looking across at his employer.  “We don’t stand a dead Dago’s chance around here.”

“Agreed,” said Cathcart, always a man of few words.  “Think the idea’s good.”

“Sure pop, it’s good,” Hank resumed with confidence.  “S’pose, now, you and I strike west, up Garden Lake way for a change!  None of us ain’t touched that quiet bit o’ land yet—­”

“I’m with you.”

“And you, Defago, take Mr. Simpson along in the small canoe, skip across the lake, portage over into Fifty Island Water, and take a good squint down that thar southern shore.  The moose ‘yarded’ there like hell last year, and for all we know they may be doin’ it agin this year jest to spite us.”