Alec Trenholme waited till the cart drew up between his door and the railway track, and regarded the giant stature of the lumberman, his small, round head, red cheeks, and luxuriant whiskers, with that intense but unreflecting interest which the lonely bestow upon unexpected company.  He looked also, with an eye to his own business, at the contents of the cart, and gave the man a civil “good evening.”

As he spoke, his voice and accent fell upon the air of this wilderness as a rarely pleasant thing to hear.  Saul hastily dressed his whiskers with his horny left-hand before he answered, but even then, he omitted to return the greeting.

“I want to know,” he said, sidling up, “how much it would cost to send that by the cars to St. Hennon’s.”  He nudged his elbow towards the coffin as he spoke.

“That box?” asked the station-master.  “How much does it weigh?”

“We might weigh it if I’d some notion first about how much I’d need to pay.”

“What’s in it?”

Saul smoothed his whiskers again.  “Well,” he said—­then, after a slight pause—­“it’s a dead man.”

“Oh!” said Trenholme.  Some habit of politeness, unnecessary here, kept his exclamation from expressing the interest he instantly felt.  In a country where there are few men to die, even death assumes the form of an almost agreeable change as a matter of lively concern.  Then, after a pause which both men felt to be suitable, “I suppose there is a special rate for—­that sort of thing, you know.  I really haven’t been here very long.  I will look it up.  I suppose you have a certificate of death, haven’t you?”

Again Saul dressed his whiskers.  His attention to them was his recognition of the fact that Trenholme impressed him as a superior.

“I don’t know about a certificate.  You’ve heard of the Bates and Cameron clearin’, I s’pose; it’s old Cameron that’s dead”—­again he nudged his elbow coffinward—­“and Mr. Bates he wrote a letter to the minister at St. Hennon’s.”

He took the letter from his pocket as he spoke, and Trenholme perceived that it was addressed in a legible hand and sealed.

“I fancy it’s all right,” said he doubtfully.  He really had not any idea what the railway might require before he took the thing in charge.

Saul did not make answer.  He was not quite sure it was all right, but the sort of wrongness he feared was not to be confided to the man into whose care he desired to shove the objectionable burden.

“What did he die of?” asked the young man.

“He fell down, and he seemed for some days as if he’d get over it; then he was took sudden.  We put his feet into a hot pot of water and made him drink lye.”

“Lye?”

“Ash water—­but we gave it him weak.”

“Oh.”

“But—­he died.”

“Well, that was sad.  Does he leave a wife and family?”

“No,” said Saul briefly.  “But how much must I pay to have the cars take it the rest of the way?”