companion, "and seein' he's humin I presume likely he'll understand
we done our best. 'Twon't be long now," he added, "'fore they'll git
here."

Two men now emerged into the clearing. The foremost, Hite Holt, as he
was known--was a veteran trapper from the valley--lean and wiry, and
wearing a coonskin cap. From under this peered a pair of keen gray
eyes, as alert as those of a fox. His straight, iron-gray hair reached
below the collar of his coat, curling in long wisps about his ears
after the fashion of the pioneer trapper. As he came on toward the
shanty the chipmunk noticed that he bent under the weight of a pack
basket loaded with provisions. He also noticed that his sixty years
carried him easily, for he kept up a swinging gait as he picked his
way over the fallen timber.

His companion, Freme Skinner, was a young lumberman of thirty, with
red hair and blue eyes; a giant in build; clad in a heavy woollen
lumber-man's jacket of variegated colours. One of his distinguishing
features--one which gained for him the soubriquet of the "Clown" the
country about, was the wearing of a girl's ring in his ear, the slit
having been made with his pocket knife in a moment of gallantry. At
the heels of the two men trotted silently a big, brindle hound.

They had reached the dilapidated shanty now and were taking a rapid
glance at their surroundings.

"Seems 'ough it warn't never goin' to clear up," remarked Hite Holt,
the trapper, slipping the well-worn straps from his great shoulders
and staggering with ninety pounds of dead weight until he deposited it
in the driest corner of the shanty. Then he added with a good-natured