was so Anglican as 'le foreman.'

'What a good-looking, merry-faced chap he is!' observed Arthur, when the
red nightcap had been pulled off in an obeisance of adieu, as they went
to seek for the others, and witness their disforesting operations.

'French Canadians are generally the personifications of good humour and
liveliness,' returned Argent; 'the pleasantest possible servants and the
best voyagers. Listen to him now, carolling a "chanson" as he manages
his smutty cookery. That's the way they sing at everything.'

'So the lumberers have a foreman?'

'Curious how the French can't invent words expressive of such things,
but must adopt ours. He tells me "le foreman's" duty is to distribute
the work properly, allotting to each gang its portion; and also to make
a report of conduct to the overseer at the end of the season, for which
purpose he keeps a journal of events. I had no idea there was so much
organization among them; and it seems the gangs have regular duties--one
to fell, one to hew, one to draw to the water's edge with oxen; and each
gang has a headman directing its labours.'

Nearing the sound of the axes, they came to where a group of lumber-men
were cutting down some tall spruce-firs, having first laid across over
the snow a series of logs, called 'bedding timbers,' in the line that
each tree would fall. One giant pine slowly swayed downwards, and
finally crashed its full length on the prepared sleepers, just as the
strangers approached. Immediately on its fall, the 'liner' commenced to
chop away the bark for a few inches wide all along the trunk, before
marking with charcoal where the axes were to hew, in squaring the
timber; meantime another man was lopping the top off the tree, and
a third cutting a sort of rough mortise-hole at the base, which he
afterwards repeated at the upper end.

So busy were the whole party, that the hewer, a genuine Paddy, who stood
leaning on his broad axe until the timber was ready for him, was the
first to raise his eyes and notice the new-comers. Arthur asked him what
the holes were for.

'Why, then, to raft the trees together when we get 'em into the water,'
was his reply; and in the same breath he jumped on to the trunk, and
commenced to notch with his axe as fast as possible along the sides,
about two feet apart. Another of his gang followed, splitting off the
blocks between the deep notches into the line mark. And this operation,
repeated for the four sides, squar