boots were of Indian make, and they were soft and light and
waterproof; a sash of several colors was knotted about his waist.
But it was not alone his dress which challenged the eye--there was
something in this fellow's easy, open bearing which arrested
attention. His dark skin had been deepened by windburn, his well-
set, well-shaped head bore a countenance both eager and
intelligent, a countenance that fairly glowed with confidence and
good humor.

Oddly enough, he sang as he sat upon his pack. High up on this
hillside, amid blasphemous complaints, he hummed a gay little
song:

"Chante, rossignol, chante!
Toi qui a le coeur gai!
Tu as le coeur a rire
Mai j'l'ai-t-a pleurer,"

ran his chanson.

Phillips had seen the fellow several times, and the circumstances
of their first encounter had been sufficiently unusual to impress
themselves upon his mind. Pierce had been resting here, at this
very spot, when the Canuck had come up into sight, bearing a
hundred-pound pack without apparent effort. Two flour-sacks upon a
man's back was a rare sight on the roof of the Chilkoot. There
were not many who could master that slope with more than one, but
this fellow had borne his burden without apparent effort; and what
was even more remarkable, what had caused Pierce Phillips to open
his eyes in genuine astonishment, was the fact that the man