Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/100

 the bank with a snarl and disappeared. Bill continued his journey morosely. In the wilderness nobody loved him. Was it possible that he had made a mistake in parting company with those impertinent but not unfriendly river men whom he had left beside the burning boat? For a moment he was tempted to turn back and look for them; but the impulse faded out as his attention was caught by the sudden shrill clamour of a squirrel showering abuse at him from a branch overhead. It was a familiar sound and he went on with more hope.

Late that evening it chanced that a vagabond Indian, poling his way up-river in his birch canoe from the far-off settlements, had landed, pulled up his light craft, and made camp just a few hundred yards below the spot where Bill, in a deep cleft in the bank, had settled himself for the night. This Indian, unlike most of the men of his shrewd breed, was rather a simple-minded rascal, shiftless and thieving, fuddled with drink when he could get it and always something of a butt both in his native village far upstream and in the settlements where he was wont to sell his baskets. It was strictly against the law to sell spirits to the Indians; but on this last visit "Poke," as he was called derisively, had found a dishonest trader, who had obligingly accepted all his basket money in return for a few bottles of fiery "Square Face."