The boatman raised his powerful form erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in craggy hardness, and cast from narrow eyes a keen, cool glance on those above.

The silvery gleam in his fair hair told of years.
Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threw to a level, grassy bench on the bank.

Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar, and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, boxes and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun.

Significant, too, were a couple of long Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin.
The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a tall, thin, gray personage of official bearing, in a faded military coat.
"Are you the musk-ox hunter ?" he asked, in tones that contained no welcome.
The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor with a cool laugh--a strange laugh, in which the muscles of his face appeared not to play.
"Yes, I am the man," he said.
"The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave tribes have been apprised of your coming.

They have held council and are here to speak with you." At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to the level bench and formed a half-circle before the voyager.