The Silent Places

At about eight o'clock one evening of the early summer a group of men were seated on agrass-plot overlooking a broad river. The sun was just setting through the forest fringedirectly behind them. Of this group some reclined in the short grass, others lay flat on the bank's slope, while stillothers leaned against the carriages of two highly ornamented field-guns, whose embossedmuzzles gaped silently at an eastern shore nearly two miles distant. The men were busy with soft-voiced talk, punctuating their remarks with low laughter of asingularly infectious character. It was strange speech, richly embroidered with the musicalnames of places, with unfamiliar names of beasts, and with unintelligible names of things. Kenógami, Mamátawan, Wenebógan, Kapúskasíng, the silver-fox, the sea-otter, the sable, the wolverine, the musk-ox, parka, babiche, tump-line, giddés, -these and others sang likearrows cleaving the atmosphere of commoner words. In the distant woods the whitethroats and olive thrushes called in a language hardly less intelligible.