m
the aforesaid speech he was sound asleep, for he was determined to waste
no time in accomplishing that either.

Argent and Arthur left this wood-cutting polity next morning, and
worked, or rather hunted their way back to the settled districts. The
former stayed for another idle week at Cedar Creek; and then the
brothers were again alone, to pursue their strife with the forest.

It went on, with varying success, till 'the moon of the snow crust,' as
the Ojibbeways poetically style March. A chaos of fallen trunks and
piled logs lay for twenty-five acres about the little shanty; Robert
was beginning to understand why the French Canadians called a cleared
patch 'un desert,' for beyond doubt the axe had a desolating result, in
its present stage.

'Why, then, Masther Robert, there's one thing I wanted to ax you,' said
Andy, resting a moment from his chopping: 'it's goin' on four months now
since we see a speck of green, an' will the snow ever be off the ground
agin, at all, at all?'

'You see the sun is only just getting power enough to melt,' returned
his master, tracing with his axe-head a furrow in the thawing surface.

'But, sure, if it always freezes up tight agin every evenin', that
little taste of meltin' won't do much good,' observed Andy. 'Throth,
I'm fairly longin' to see that lake turn into wather, instead ov bein'
as hard as iron. Sure the fish must all be smothered long ago, the
crathurs, in prison down there.'

'Well, Andy, I hope they'll be liberated next month. Meanwhile the ice
is a splendid high road. Look there.'

From behind a wooded promontory, stretching far into the lake, at the
distance of about half a mile from where they were chopping, emerged the
figure of a very tall Indian, wrapped in a dark blanket and carrying a
gun. After him, in the stately Indian file, marched two youths, also
armed; then appeared a birchen traineau, drawn by the squaw who had
the honour of being wife and mother respectively to the preceding
copper-coloured men, and who therefore was constituted their beast of
burden. A girl and a child--future squaws--shared the toil of pulling
along the family chattels, unaided by the stalwart lords of the creation
stalking in front.

'Why, thin, never welcome their impidence, an' to lave the poor women
to do all the hard work, an' they marchin' out forenenst 'em like three
images, so stiff an' so sthraight, an' never spakin' a word. I'm afeard
it's here they're comin.' An' I gi