rely soldered together
by snow and the spray from the falls. Beneath that jumbled mass he
knew that the water was straining and groaning and swirling until it
found under the thick ice the outlet that would lead it towards the
big lake to the eastward. Although the middle of March was at hand
there was not the slightest sign of any breaking up. He knew that it
would take a long time yet before the snows began to melt, the ice to
become thinner on the lakes and the waters to rise, brown and turbid
with the earth torn from the banks and the sand ever ground up in the
rough play of turbulent waters with rolling boulders.

Yet the coming of spring was not so very far off now and the days were
growing longer. It would take but a few weeks before the first great
wedges of flying geese would pass high above him in their journey to
the shallows of the Hudson's Bay, where they nested in myriads. And
then other birds would follow until the smallest arrived, chirping
with the joy of the slumbering earth's awakening.

It was a glorious country, he truly believed. The winter had been long
but the hunting and trapping had kept him busy enough. The days had
seemed too short to become dreary and he had slept long during the
nights, seldom awakening at the rumblings of the maddened pent-up
waters or the sharp explosions of great trees cracking in the fierce
cold. But he was glad of the prospect of renewed hard work upon his
claim, of promising toil to expose further the great silver-bearing
veins of calcite that wound their way through the harder rock. He knew
that his find was of the sort that had flooded the Nipissing and the
Gowganda countries with eager searchers and delvers, and created
villages and even towns in a wilderness where formerly the moose
wandered in the great hardwood swamps and the deer were often chased
by ravening packs of baying wolves.

His attention had reverted to the great sharp-muzzled dog that had
been crouching at his feet, and he bent down and began to pull out
small porcupine quills that had become fastened in the animal's nose
and lips.

"Maybe some day you'll learn enough to let those varmints alone,
Maigan, old boy," he said, having become accustomed to long
conversations with his companion. "I expect you're pretty nearly as
silly as a man. Experience teaches you mighty little. Dogs and men
have been stung since the beginning of the world, I expect, and keep
on making the same old mistakes. Hold ha