This, then, was the party of four that found themselves in camp the last
week in October of that "shy moose year" 'way up in the wilderness north
of Rat Portage--a forsaken and desolate country. There was also Punk, an
Indian, who had accompanied Dr. Cathcart and Hank on their hunting trips
in previous years, and who acted as cook. His duty was merely to stay in
camp, catch fish, and prepare venison steaks and coffee at a few
minutes' notice. He dressed in the worn-out clothes bequeathed to him by
former patrons, and, except for his coarse black hair and dark skin, he
looked in these city garments no more like a real redskin than a stage
Negro looks like a real African. For all that, however, Punk had in him
still the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and his
endurance survived; also his superstition.
The party round the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a week
had passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself.
Defago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in bad
humor, reminded him so often that "he kep' mussing-up the fac's so, that
it was 'most all nothin' but a petered-out lie," that the Frenchman had
finally subsided into a sulky silence which nothing seemed likely to
break. Dr. Cathcart and his nephew were fairly done after an exhausting
day. Punk was washing up the dishes, grunting to himself under the
lean-to of branches, where he later also slept.
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