Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-03

woman, neatly dressed in white, young and
attractive, appear at the doorway as we
drew near. A small boy, clad in a single
garment of singular brevity, tried to hide
| himself within her skirts. The boy was as
brown as beech-nut, and quite in line with
his home In point of cleanliness. A medal
| with raised figure, presumably of the Holy
| Mother, hung from q ribbon around the
youngsters neck. He was plainly fright
ened at the strange visitors, and his mother
hardly less so. Neither spoke word of
English, and when addressed in French the
woman answered in the same language, but
in the Canadian patOis.
She said the men would come in for din
ner in a minute or two, and as we left the
house and took seat to windward of it on
fallen tree, she came to the threshold and
putting her hands about her mouth gave a
shrill 'haliooP' that brought an answer
from some mans throat with the echo, and
then was repeated again and again from be-
low and above on the hillside.
Presently the owners of the voices came
struggling in. They were not a pretty
crowd. In their veins were blended French
and Indian blood, and whatever the moral
or mental benefits of the mixture may be
the physical result is not admirable. They
were mostly sallow, dark-haired lantern
jawed and lean.
Estab ishing Their RespecsabilIty.
The spokesman OF tho party and their
leader, as it turned out, q man named Len
merit, had the brightest face of them all, but
his eyes were small and had cunning look.
Most of them spoke few words of English,
and Lennert understood that language
pretty WELL They all spoke Canadian French,
which is apparently as much mongrel
tongue as the French Canadian dialect
which tortures magazine readers so much
these days In one language and another,
however, it was not difficult to make out
that no law-breakers were to be found in
their ranks. Lennert explained at length
how he had been going back and forth be-
tween Canada and the United States in the
pursuit of his calling as woodchopper and
barkpeeler for many years So had many of
his comrades. They all came from the same
district in Quebec, and had made the jour
ney at this particular time at no ones invi-
tation and at their own expense, trust
ing merely to Lennert's assurance
that they would find work in plenty in the
woods of Mexican county. They had not
been contracted for-that they were en-
phatic in declaring, and in proof of that it
was shown that the bark peeling they were
then engaged in was not let to Mr.. Camp
bell, for whom they were working, till some
time after their arrival in this country.
Inspector Layton cross-examined them at
considerable length, and Mr.. Campbell,
their American employer also testified, it
appeared candidly and unreservedly, all he
knew about them, but nothing showing any
infraction of the law was developed.
Indeed. it was made clear that
many of these Canadians had been working
in these woods for years, some of them stay
xL L,.A Al
remaining only for the bark-peeling season.
So they were allowed to 60 back to their
dinner, and the pretty, dark-eyed woman
who had watched the proceedings from the
door with such an anxious air that the boy
had fallen to crying out of sympathy,
smiled once more. Her white skin and
regular features made the statement that
she, too, was q halfbreed Indian hard to
believe.
Dinner OF Fresh Trout.
The last chapter is often the pleasantest,
it was 50 in our case. We had risen
at 6 A. M. in Austin, and had
been in the cars, driving over country
roads or tramping through the woods tor
five hours. An invitation to dinner, not at
the French camp, for we had been warned
of the cookery there, but at the Campbell
camp, where Americans were in charge,
lower down the hill, was accepted with
alacrity. If the piquancy of that meal,
served plainly and with many unnecessary
apologies by the cheery wife of one of the
woodchoppers, could be reproduced in print
you could understand why fresh trout, po-
tatoes, beans, bread and butter, pre-
served blackberries disappeared as if
by magic. Even the woodsmen admired
the catholicity of our appetites
A dozen splendid young fellows
they were; bronzed and muscular from their
life out-of-doors and hearty of manner as
men who make comrade of nature are apt
to be. They work IL hours each day.
Somebody asked one of them what they
did after night came down upon the woods
''You work day chopping trees or peeling
bark, was the reply, ''and you'll only
want to do one thing when you're through
Sleep" Nevertheless one of the older
men after dinner while the others were
filing up their pipes and finding shady
spots for lounging outside, skunk off into a
corner and pulled from his pocket creased
title of the story that he was reading was
1.-THE Treasure Cave, or Fearless Fred's
Fight for Fortune;" and picture. as 1urid
as could be in black and white, showed
Fred, the hero, in the act of killing Is men
at one blow, or something of the sort The
love tor stories of adventure seems IS great
in the solitude of the forest as in the COM
mon place hum-drum of city life.
HEPBURN JOHNS