As soon as the other sons returned from their hunting, two of the women dragged a deal table from one side of the room, and all sat down to supper. This was the first time that Herr Kohl had seen the women sit down with the men; here it seemed a recognised thing. The unmarried granddaughter--a pretty girl of seventeen--did most of the waiting, and that by helping an enormous stew of onions, beef, chickens and hare from the pot on to wooden platters, and handing them round. Forks were not used. After supper they all adjourned to the benches outside the house. The visitor had brandy and cigars in his portmanteau; and, while he handed these delicacies round, another surprise greeted him; the chief was a teetotaller! and even the sons partook very sparingly of the brandy, though they appreciated the cigars as having a flavour of town life. He was beginning to understand now why there was no inn in the place. The street was the village public-house. Men sat and smoked outside the huts, or strolled up and down in twos and threes; some even squatted in the middle of the road. To-night, as there was a stranger in the place, a knot of Indians stood looking on from a respectful distance at the chief's party; and presently, most of the elders of the tribe came and sat or lounged near the chief. Each of these greeted the stranger with a guttural "Bon soir, M'sieu'" (one or two of them promoted him to "Monseigneur"). Had they forgotten their own language even? For a while the talk was of the morrow's festivity, and a tall young brave, whose face was indistinguishable in the twilight, was introduced to Kohl as the future bridegroom; but this topic soon flagged, and the traveller guessed, from the general turning of faces towards him, that it was "news" that everybody wanted. Before he had talked many minutes he had become a personage; for he had read and travelled widely, and had the rare knack of being able to suit himself to whatever company he happened to be in. He could tell the redskins nothing of Quebec City, for he had not been there; but what pleased them more than anything else was his talk of England; he had once stayed in London; had even seen their White Queen. They wanted no fresher news than that, though it was more than three years old; and they let him talk till his head was nodding with sleep. After a night passed in one of the loose-boxes and between two bear-skins, he rose early and started off to the woods with the three sons of the house, who had to clear some traps a few miles away. For some time their talk mystified him, for they continually spoke of the animal for which the snares were set as _le chat_. He knew that wild cats were almost unknown so far north, and the tame ones could scarcely be so plentiful in a pine-forest as to need trapping. He asked for an explanation, which his companions laughingly gave.