"Who's Andrée?" the man asked back.

Van Brunt looked at him more sharply. "By George, you've been here
some time."

"Five years," the man answered, a dim flicker of pride in his eyes.
"But come on, let's talk."

"Let them camp alongside of me," he answered Van Brunt's glance at his
party. "Old Tantlatch will take care of them. Come on."

He swung off in a long stride, Van Brunt following at his heels
through the village. In irregular fashion, wherever the ground
favored, the lodges of moose hide were pitched. Van Brunt ran his
practised eye over them and calculated.

"Two hundred, not counting the young ones," he summed up.

The man nodded. "Pretty close to it. But here's where I live, out of
the thick of it, you know--more privacy and all that. Sit down. I'll
eat with you when your men get something cooked up. I've forgotten
what tea tastes like.... Five years and never a taste or smell.... Any
tobacco?... Ah, thanks, and a pipe? Good. Now for a fire-stick and
we'll see if the weed has lost its cunning."

He scratched the match with the painstaking care of the woodsman,
cherished its young flame as though there were never another in all
the world, and drew in the first mouthful of smoke. This he retained
meditatively for a time, and blew out through his pursed lips slowly