The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.

“All right, boys.  Here goes!  Since I was a kid in Maine woods I’ve worked at a’most everything that a woodsman can do.  Six year ago I was a ‘barker’ in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River.  A ‘barker’ is a man who jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has felled it, and strips the bark off with his axe, so that the trunk can be easily hauled over the snow.  Well, it’s pretty hard labor, is lumbering.  But our camp always got Sunday for rest.

“Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday afternoon, when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which staggered the stripped trees like as if ’twould tumble ’em all down, and end our work for us.  I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able, when I tripped over something which was a’most covered over in a heavy drift.  ’Great Scott!’ says I, ‘it’s a man!’ And ’twas too.  He was near dead.  I hauled him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn’t walk.  So I threw him across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer.  He didn’t weigh near as much as a good buck, for he was little more’n a kid and awful lean.  But ’twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half blinding and burying you.  I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp, and pitched in head foremost.

“For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we succeeded.  We saw at once that he was a half-breed.  When he could use his tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a Penobscot Indian.  He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked a lot of Indian jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke English fust-rate.  Chris Kemp he said was his name.  And from the start the lumbermen nicknamed him ’Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were black as blackberries, had a queer squint in ’em.

“Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me.  And the following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to trapping fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me.  We swore to be chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to share all we got; and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to strengthen the oath.  A fine way he kept it too!

“Now, if I’m too long-winded, boys, say so; and I’ll hurry up.”

“No, no!  Tell us everything.”

“Spin it out as long as you can.”

“We don’t mind listening half the night.  Go ahead!”

At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went ahead as he was bidden.

“We made camp together—­him and me.  We had two home-camps where I told you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken, which we stored in one of ’em.  We got along together swimmingly for a bit.  But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before.  I guess he took it from his mother’s people.  Give him one drink of whiskey, and it stirred up all