CHAPTER XIV.
Would They Be Friends?
When Mrs.Burton had gone, Mary set to work to inspect the little loghouse, and make things comfortable for the night.

But there was not very much that needed doing, and their weeks of river travel had shorn away so many habits which are the outcome of too much civilization, that they had come down to a primitive simplicity of living.

The hut contained two small bedrooms, scarcely bigger than cabins on board ship, one sitting-room, and a lean-to kitchen in the rear.

There was not an atom of paint about the place; it was all bare, brown wood, restful to the eyes, and in perfect harmony with the surrounding wilderness.
The boatmen had pitched their tent at the down-river side of the house, and were sitting round a fire on the ground smoking their pipes in great comfort and content.

Mary had finished her survey of the inside of her new home, and now wandered outside the house to see what manner of country lay in the immediate neighbourhood of Roaring Water Portage.