The Eternal Masculine by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

This is a story about my guide, Josef Vezina. He's a corking guide and a wonder at hunting, and all sorts of a good fellow besides, but he's a French-Canadian _habitant_, and that means that he's blind as a bat to some ideas perfectly evident to us. So he did a stunt last autumn one day, all out of kindness of heart, which came near getting me into a nasty hole, and would, if my friend Arthur Shackleton, my roommate at college last year, hadn't been the best ever, and too square himself to think un-squareness of another fellow. It turned out only a joke on me after it was straightened out, but I was feeling rather shy for a while along at first.

I ought to give some idea of the sort Josef is. Well, to look at he's a tall, lean, powerful chap of twenty-four, with slim hips and big shoulders, and black hair, and large light-blue eyes which are simply marvellous. They are wide open always, and snap back and forth over everything like lightning, and there isn't a visible object for miles that they miss. Why, one day out on the lake in a canoe, fishing, Josef said, in his soft, respectful voice: