His dog, having darted with noisy scatter of dry leaves down the hill to
meet him, stood on the shore expectant with mouth open, excitement in
his eyes and tail, saying as clearly as aught can be said without
words--"This is a very agreeable event in our lives. Visitors have
come." The moment Bates put his foot on land the dog bounded barking up
the hill, then turned again to Bates, then again bounded off toward the
visitors. Even a watchdog may be glad to see strangers if the pleasure
is only rare enough.

Bates mounted the slope as a man may mount stairs--two steps at a time.
Had he seen the strangers, as the saying is, dropping from the clouds,
he could hardly have been more surprised than he was to see civilised
people had reached his place otherwise than by the lake, for the rugged
hills afforded nothing but a much longer and more arduous way to any
settlement within reach. When he got up, however, he saw that these men
carried with them implements of camp-life and also surveying
instruments, by which he judged, and rightly, that his guests were
ranging the lonely hills upon some tour of official survey.

That the travellers _were_ his guests neither he nor they had the
slightest doubt. They had set down their traps close to his door, and,
in the calm confidence that it would soon be hospitably opened by
rightful hands, they had made no attempt to open it for themselves.
There were eight men in the party, two of whom, apparently its more
important members, sauntered to meet Bates, with pipes in their mouths.
These told him what district they were surveying, by what track they had
just come over the hill, where they had camped the past night, where
they wanted to get to by nightfall. They remarked on the situation of
his house and the extent of his land. They said to him, in fact, more