WILLIE WHISPER 17 



men are coming here and so they surely are, for 

 when these perceptions come to me they are 

 never wrong, but it is improbable that the advent 

 of these strangers has any bearing upon the 

 course of your life or of mine, and why it should 

 have been perceived by me I cannot say. 



" Well now," said Willie, getting up and stretch- 

 ing himself, " I have talked enough and more than 

 enough about myself. I have talked the sun 

 down below the tops of those pines, and I only 

 hope I have not bored you nearly to tears. Why 

 I have thus discoursed about my most uninteresting 

 life and experiences goodness only knows, but it 

 has at least eaten up some hours of a necessarily 

 uneventful day. Come, it is getting chilly. Let 

 us in to cook our supper and then, to while away 

 the time till sweet sleep sets us free to wander, 

 we must talk of some of our experiences in the 

 wilds." So we strolled back to camp, carried in 

 fuel for the night, cooked our supper of trout, 

 frizzling in fat pork, made up a bright fire of 

 sweet-smelling birch, and sat down to smoke 

 and yam. 



" Well, Willie," said I " you have done me a 

 good turn, and a day that would have been weary 



