For a
full breath or two they looked, neither speaking, and the hair along
Kazan's spine stood stiff. Something reached out to Jan and set his
tired blood tingling. He knew that this man was not a forest man. He
was not of his people. His face bore the stamp of the people to the
south, of civilization. And yet something passed between them, leaped
all barriers, and made them friends before they had spoken. The
stranger reached down his hand, and Jan reached up his. All of the
loneliness, the clinging to hope, the starving desire of two men for
companionship, passed in the long grip of their hands.
"You have just come down," said the man, half questioningly. "That was
your sledge--out there?"
"Yes," said Jan.
The stranger sat down in the chair next to Jan.
"From the camps?" he questioned eagerly.
"What camps, m'sieur?"
"The railroad camps, where they are putting the new line through,
beyond Wekusko."
"I know of no camps," said Jan simply. "I know of no railroad, except
this that comes to Le Pas. I come from Lac Bain, on the edge of the
barren lands."
"You have never been down before?" asked the stranger softly. Jan
wondered at the light in his eyes.
"A long time ago," he said, "for a day. I have passed all of my life--
up there.
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