While making his way hopefully forward, Harvey became aware of a singular fact.  The air around him was tainted with a peculiar odor, such as he had never met before.  It was of a rank nature, and, while not agreeable, could not be said to be really unpleasant.  It might have interested him more, but for his anxiety to reach the shelter which was now so near at hand.

Arriving at the cabin, he found the latch-string hanging out.  A sharp pull, the door was swung inward and Harvey stepped into a small room, lit up by a crackling wood-fire on the hearth.

As he entered, two men who were smoking their pipes, looked up.  The visitor could not hide his expression of surprise, for they were Hugh O’Hara and Thomas Hansell, the last persons in the world he wished to see.

CHAPTER II.

A pointed discussion.

Hugh O’Hara was in middle life.  He was of Scotch descent, and, in his younger days, had received a fair education.  Even now he spent much time over his books.  He talked well, and was not without a certain grace of manner founded, no doubt, on his knowledge of human nature, which gave him great influence with others.  It was this, as much as his skill, that made him the leading foreman at a time when a score of others had the right by seniority of service to the place.

But Hugh had dipped into the springs of learning just enough to have his ideas of right and wrong turned awry and to form a distaste for his lot that made his leadership dangerous.  Besides, he had met with sorrows that deepened the shadows that lay across his pathway.  In that little cabin he had seen a young wife close her eyes in death, and his only child, a sweet girl of five years, not long afterward was laid beside her mother.  Many said that Hugh buried his heart with Jennie and had not been the same man since.  He was reserved, except to one or two intimate friends.  Shaggy, beetle-browed and unshaven, his looks were anything but pleasing to those who did not fully know him.

Tom Hansell was much the same kind of man, except that he lacked the book education of his companion and leader.  He had strong impulses, and was ready to go to an extreme length in whatever direction he started, but he always needed a guiding spirit, and that he found in Hugh O’Hara.

The latter, after burying his child, moved into the village, saying that he never wanted to look again upon the cabin that had brought so much sorrow to him.  Most people believed he could not be led to go near it, and yet on this blustery night he and Tom Hansell were seated in the structure without any companions except the well known hound Nero, and were smoking their pipes and plotting mischief.

Hugh and Tom were in their working clothes—­coarse trousers, shirts, and heavy shoes, without vest or coat.  Their flabby caps lay on the floor behind them, and their tousled hair hung over their foreheads almost to their eyes.  Tom had no side whiskers, but a heavy mustache and chin whiskers, while the face of Hugh was covered with a spiky black beard that stood out from his face as if each hair was charged with electricity.