Page:November Joe.pdf/51

 produce parsimoniously little that was suggestive. Nevertheless, I did not see how this little bit of spruce, crudely fashioned and split as it was, would lead us very far.

November spent another few minutes in looking everything over a second time, then he took up his axe and split a couple of logs and lit the fire. Over it he hung his inevitable kettle and boiled up the leaves of our morning brew with a liberal handful freshly added.

"Well," I said, as he touched the end of a burning ember to his pipe, "has this camp helped you?"

"Some," said November. "And you?"

He put the question quite seriously, though I suspect not without some inward irony.

"I can see that two men slept under one tent cover, that they cut the wood for their fire in that marsh we visited, and that they were here for a day, perhaps two."

"One was here for three days, the other one night," corrected November.

"How can you tell that?"

November pointed to the ground at the far side of the fire.