if some
old employee is standing even at work; his privilege of birth is as
nothing compared with the honor of age, even in his father's hireling.

The fourth thing he must master is the thorough knowledge of medicinal
roots and herbs--antidotes for snake-bite and poison--also the various
charms and the elementary "science" of the medicine man, though the
occupation of the latter must be inherited, and made in itself a life
study. With this branch of drilling also is inculcated the precept of
etiquette never to speak of or act slightingly of another's opinion,
and never to say the word "No," which he is taught to regard as a rude
refusal. He may convey it by manner or action, but speak it--never.

And during the years he is absorbing this education he is unceasingly
instructed in every branch of warfare, of canoe-making, of fashioning
arrows, paddles and snow-shoes. He studies the sign language, the
history and legends of his nation; he familiarizes himself with the
"archives" of wampum belts, learning to read them and to value the great
treaties they sealed. He excels in the national sports of "lacrosse,"
"bowl and beans," and "snow snake," and when, finally, he goes forth
to face his forest world he is equipped to obtain his own living with
wisdom and skill, and starts life a brave, capable, well-educated
gentleman, though some yet call him an uncivilized savage.

Jack o' Lantern

I

Everybody along the river knew old "Andy" Lavergne; for years he had
been "the lamplighter," if such an office could exist in the rough
backwoods settlement that bordered that treacherous stream in the timber
country of northern Ontario. He had been a great, husky man in his time,
who could swing an axe with the best of the lumbermen, but an accident
in a log jam had twisted his sturdy legs and hips for life, and laid him
off active service, and now he must cease to accompany the great gangs
of choppers in the lumber camps, and do his best to earn a few honest
dollars about the settlement and the sawmill. So the big-hearted mill
hands paid him good money for doing many odd jobs, the most important of
which was to keep a lantern lighted every dark night, both summer and
winter, to warn them of the danger spot in the Wildcat river, that raced
in its treacherous course between the mill and their shanty homes on the
opposite shore.

This danger spot was a perfect snarl of jagged rocks, just below the
surface of the black waters t