most virgin solitude, was less dreary and forlorn than this first
footprint of man. The only redeeming feature of this prolonged bivouac
was the cabin itself. Built of the half-cylindrical strips of pine
bark, and thatched with the same material, it had a certain picturesque
rusticity. But this was an accident of economy rather than taste, for
which Flip apologized by saying that the bark of the pine was "no good"
for charcoal.

"I reckon dad's in the woods," she added, pausing before the open door
of the cabin. "Oh, Dad!" Her voice, clear and high, seemed to fill the
whole long cañon, and echoed from the green plateau above. The
monotonous strokes of an axe were suddenly intermitted, and somewhere
from the depths of the close-set pines a voice answered "Flip." There
was a pause of a few moments, with some muttering, stumbling, and
crackling in the underbrush, and then the appearance of "Dad."

Had Lance first met him in the thicket, he would have been puzzled to
assign his race to Mongolian, Indian, or Ethiopian origin. Perfunctory
but incomplete washings of his hands and face, after charcoal burning,
had gradually ground into his skin a grayish slate-pencil pallor,
grotesquely relieved at the edges, where the washing had left off, with
a border of a darker color. He looked like an overworked Christy
minstrel with the briefest of intervals between his performances. There
were black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of
unglazed spectacles, which heightened his simian resemblance, already
grotesquely exaggerated by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic
experiments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the slightest notice of
Lance, he inflicted his protesting and querulous presence entirely on
his daughter.