y the stove. He took him out of doors
and explained the business in hand. Bill prided himself somewhat on his
ability to "git work out of Injuns." Pete muttered only "all right." He
took the money Bill gave him, and then slunk away down the road for the
forest, as we have seen him.

* * * * *

Bill felt so confident of the success of his experiment that he did not
hesitate to inform the boys that Pete was "dead sure" to return. He
would stake his reputation upon it.

Pete was in a hard position. If he loved anything in this world, it was
whisky. If there was anything he feared, it was Bill's fist. The two
were sure to go together. The money jingling in his pocket suggested
unlimited pleasures, but over every one hung Bill's hard fist. He ran
several miles through the forest, till, turning a corner of the road, he
came upon a little clearing, in which stood a small log house. Pete knew
the place well. Here lived Jeff Hunt with his wife, a French woman, and
their troop of children.

Jeff was a person of little importance by the side of his wife, though,
like all "lords of creation," he considered himself the legal and proper
head of the family, as well as one of the mainstays of society. His part
of the family government consisted, for the most part, in keeping the
house supplied with wood and water, and in smoking his comfortable pipe
in the corner, while his wife bent over her tub.

Mrs. Hunt was the only woman near the camp, and so all the laundry work
fell to her. Laundry work in the pine woods implies mending and darning,
as well as washing and ironing, and the poor little woman had her hands
full of work surely. It was rub, rub, rub, day after day, over the
steaming tub, with the children running about like little wolves, and
Jeff kindly giving his advice from his comfortable corner. And even
after the children were in bed at night, she must sit up and mend the
clean clothes.

What a pack of children there were! How rough and strong they seemed,
running about all day, all but poor little Marie, the oldest. She had
never been strong, and now at last she was dying of consumption. She
could not sit up at all, but lay all day on the little bed in the
corner, watching her mother with sad, beautiful eyes.

The brave little Frenchwoman's heart almost failed her at times, as she
saw how day by day the little form grew thinner, the eyes more
beautiful, the cheeks more flushed. She knew