Trails and Tales in Cobalt #851060

When I first met “Pard” he was on ground belonging to the Nipissing Mining Company, on the trail between Cross Lake and Cobalt Station. The fact that he was on this company’s property and in this locality bespoke him a stranger, for the ground in the vicinity had all been staked. Evidently he had just arrived in camp and was establishing himself that he might “get located.”
That he was a stranger was endorsed by the new tin pail which flashed back the sunlight in silvery splendor from the bundle of blankets which, with a tent, constituted the pack, engirthed by a pack-strap and lying where it had been flung on the ground. To this bundle there was a frying-pan attached, also new. With a small axe, such as prospectors use, he was clearing away the underbrush. There was nothing in his dress to denote the veteran, save that the hat he had was a well-worn Stetson, such as the tenderfoot is wont to affect, and the prospector and plainsman of the West ever chooses because it suits him best. The man’s movements were deliberate, but he never wasted an effort.