and Bishop must when the drifts are soft and
the road is uncertain.

In the purple dawn they had left Lowville and the railroad behind and
had headed into the hills. For thirty miles, with only one stop for a
bite of lunch and a change of ponies, they had pounded along up the
half-broken, logging roads. Now they were in the high country and
there were no roads.

Arsene had come this way yesterday. But a drifting storm had followed
him down from Little Tupper, covering the road that he had made and
leaving no trace of the way. He had stopped driving and held only a
steady, even rein to keep his ponies from stumbling, while he let the
tough, willing little Canadian blacks pick their own road.

Twice in the last hour the Bishop and Arsene had been tossed off the
single bobsled out into the drifts. It was back-breaking work, sitting
all day long on the swaying bumper, with no back rest, feet braced
stiffly against the draw bar in front to keep the dizzy balance. But
it was the only way that this trip could be made.

The Bishop knew that he should not have let the confirmation in French
Village on Little Tupper go to this late date in the season. He had
arranged to come a month before. But Father Ponfret's illness had put
him back at that time.

Now he was worried. The early December dark was upon them. There was
no road. The ponies were tiring. And there were yet twelve bad miles
to go.

Still, things might be worse. The cold was not bad. He had the bulkier
of his vestments and regalia in his stout leather bag lashed firmly to
the sled. They could take no harm. The holy oils and the other sacred
essentials were slung securely about his body. And a tumble more or
less in the snow was a part of the day's work. They would break their
way through somehow.

So, with the occasional interruptions, he was practising his amazing
French upon Arsene.

Bishop Joseph Winthrop of Alden was of old Massachusetts stock. He had
learned the French that was taught at Harvard in the fifties.
Afterwards, after his conversion to the Catholic Church, he had gone
to Louvain for his seminary studies. There he had heard French of
another kind. But to the day he died he spoke his French just as it
was written in the book, and with an aggressive New England accent.

He must speak French to the children in French Village to-morrow, not
because the children would understand, but because it would please
Father Ponfret and the parents.

They