afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's
cradle into the sleeping-room. That left little Baptiste so lonely
that he could not sit still; nor did he see any use of going to lie
awake in bed by Andre and Odillon.

So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the river with a few steps,
pushed off his flat-bottomed boat, and was carried smartly up stream
by the shore eddy. It soon gave him to the current, and then he
drifted idly down under the bright moon, listening to the roar of the
long rapid, near the foot of which their cabin stood. Then he took to
his oars, and rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the wharf.
He had an unusual fear that it might be gone, but found it all right,
stretched taut; a slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated here
and there far away in the darkness by flat cedar sticks,--a rope
carrying short bits of line, and forty hooks, all loaded with
excellent fat, wriggling worms.

That day little Baptiste had taken much trouble with his night-line;
he was proud of the plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened
rope with his fingers, he told himself that his well-filled hooks
_must_ attract plenty of fish,--perhaps a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be
grand? A big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!

He pondered the Ottawa statement that "there are seven kinds of meat
on the head of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell into a
conviction that one sturgeon at least would surely come to his line.
Had not three been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette, who had no
sort of claim, who was too lazy to bait more than half his hooks,
altogether too wicked to receive any special favors from _le bon
Dieu_?

Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin softly, and stripped for
bed, almost happy in guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.

Putting his arms around little Andre, he tried to go to sleep; but the
threats of Conolly came to him with new force, and he lay awake, with
a heavy dread in his heart.

How long he had been lying thus he did not know, when a heavy step
came upon the plank outside the door.

"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste, springing to the floor as the
door opened.

"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima, putting her arms around her
husband as he stood over her.

"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing her son's hand, "that the
good God would send help in time?"

Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw something in the father's
face