He said: "Hullo, boys! Hot day!" in a big voice that was intentionally3 hearty4, ran his bulging5 eyes appraisingly6 over every one present, then took off his wide-brimmed felt hat and mopped his glistening7 forehead with a big red and white handkerchief. Receiving a more or less hospitable8 chorus of grunts9 and "hullos" in response, he seated himself on a keg of nails, removed the leather case from his back, and asked for ginger10 beer, which he drank noisily from the bottle.
"Name of Byles," said he at length, introducing himself with a sweeping11 nod. "Hot tramp in from Cribb's Ridge12. Thirsty, you bet. Never drink nothing stronger'n ginger pop or soft cider. Have a round o' pop on me, boys. A1 pop this o' yours, mister. A dozen more bottles, please, for these gentlemen."
He looked around the circle with an air at once assured and persuasive13. And the taciturn woodsmen, not wholly at ease under such sudden cordiality from a stranger, but too polite to rebuff him, muttered "Thank ye, kindly14," or "Here's how," as they threw back their heads and poured the weak stuff down their gaunt and hairy throats.
It was a slack time at Brine's Rip, the mills having shut down that morning because the river was so low that there were no more logs running. The shrieking15 saws being silent for a little, there was nothing for the mill hands to do but loaf and smoke. The hot air was heavily scented16 with the smell of fresh sawdust mixed with the strong honey-perfume of the flowering buckwheat fields beyond the village. The buzzing of flies in the windows of the store was like a fine arabesque17 of sound against the ceaseless, muffled18 thunder of the rapids.
The dozen men gathered here at Zeb Smith's store—which was, in effect, the village club—found it hard to rouse themselves to a conversational19 effort in any way worthy20 the advances of the confident stranger. They all smoked a little harder than usual, and looked on with courteous21 but noncommittal interest while he proceeded to unstrap his shiny black leather case.
In his stiff and sombre garb22, so unsuited to the backwoods trails, the stranger had much the look of one of those itinerant23 preachers who sometimes busy themselves with the cure of souls in the remoter backwoods settlements. But his eye and his address were rather those of a shrewd and pushing commercial traveller.
Tug24 Blackstock, the Deputy Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County, felt a vague antagonism25 toward him, chiefly on the ground that his speech and bearing did not seem to consort26 with his habiliments. He rather liked a man to look what he was or be what he looked, and he did not like black side whiskers and long hair. This antagonism, however, he felt to be unreasonable27. The man had evidently had a long and tiring tramp, and was entitled to a somewhat friendlier reception than he was getting.
Swinging his long legs against the counter, on which he sat between a pile of printed calicoes and a box of bright pink fancy soap, Tug Blackstock reached behind him and possessed28 himself of a box of long, black cigars. Having selected one critically for himself, he proffered29 the box to the stranger.
"Have a weed?" said he cordially. "They ain't half bad."
But the stranger waved the box aside with an air at once grand and gracious.
"I never touch the weed, thank you kindly just the same," said he. "But I've nothing agin it. It goes agin my system, that's all. If it's all the same to you, I'll take a bite o' cheese an' a cracker30 'stead o' the cigar."
"Sartain," agreed Blackstock, jumping down to fetch the edibles31 from behind the counter. Like most of the regular customers, he knew the store and its contents almost as well as Zeb Smith himself.
During the last few minutes an immense, rough-haired black dog had been sniffing32 the stranger over with suspicious minuteness. The stranger at first paid no attention whatever, though it was an ordeal33 that many might have shrunk from. At last, seeming to notice the animal for the first time, he recognized his presence by indifferently laying his hand upon his neck. Instead of instantly drawing off with a resentful growl34, after his manner with strangers, the dog acknowledged the casual caress35 by a slight wag of the tail, and then, after a few moments, turned away amicably36 and lay down.
"If Jim finds him all right," thought Blackstock to himself, "ther' can't be much wrong with him, though I can't say I take to him myself." And he weighed off a much bigger piece of cheese than he had at first intended to offer, marking down his indebtedness on a slate37 which served the proprietor38 as a sort of day-book. The stranger fell to devouring39 it with an eagerness which showed that his lunch must have been of the lightest.
"Ye was sayin' as how ye'd jest come up from Cribb's Ridge?" put in a long-legged, heavy-shouldered man who was sprawling40 on a cracker box behind the door. He had short sandy hair, rapidly thinning, eyes of a cold grey, set rather close together, and a face that suggested a cross between a fox and a fish-hawk. He was somewhat conspicuous41 among his fellows by the trimness of his dress, his shirt being of dark blue flannel42 with a rolled-up collar and a scarlet43 knotted kerchief, while the rest of the mill hands wore collarless shirts of grey homespun, with no thought of neckerchiefs.
His trousers were of brown corduroy, and were held up by a broad belt of white dressed buckskin, elaborately decorated with Navajo designs in black and red. He stuck to this adornment44 tenaciously45
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