l
conduct.

"There they are, Hughie," called Thomas, as the sleighs came out into
the open at the crossroads. "They'll wait for us. They know you're
coming," he yelled, encouragingly, for the big boys had left the smaller
ones, a panting train, far in the rear, and were piling themselves
upon the Finch's sleighs, with never a "by your leave" to William
John--familiarly known as Billy Jack--Thomas' eldest brother, who drove
the Finch's team.

Thomas' home lay a mile north and another east from the Twentieth
cross-roads, but the winter road by which they hauled saw-logs to the
mill, cut right through the forest, where the deep snow packed hard
into a smooth track, covering roots and logs and mud holes, and making
a perfect surface for the sleighs, however heavily loaded, except where
here and there the pitch-holes or cahots came. These cahots, by the way,
though they became, especially toward the spring, a serious annoyance
to teamsters, only added another to the delights that a sleigh-ride held
for the boys.

To Hughie, the ride this evening was blissful to an unspeakable degree.
He was overflowing with new sensations. He was going to spend the night
with Thomas, for one thing, and Thomas as his host was quite a new and
different person from the Thomas of the school. The minister's wife,
ever since the examination day, had taken a deeper interest in Thomas,
and determined that something should be made out of the solemn, stolid,
slow-moving boy. Partly for this reason she had yielded to Hughie's
eager pleading, backing up the invitation brought by Thomas himself
and delivered in an agony of red-faced confusion, that Hughie should be
allowed to go home with him for the night. Partly, too, because she
was glad that Hughie should see something of the Finch's home, and
especially of the dark-faced, dark-eyed little woman who so silently and
unobtrusively, but so efficiently, administered her home, her family,
and their affairs, and especially her husband, without suspicion on his
part that anything of the kind was being done.

In addition to the joy that Hughie had in Thomas in his new role as
host, this winter road was full of wonder and delight, as were all roads
and paths that wound right through the heart of the bush. The regular
made-up roads, with the forest cut back beyond the ditches at the sides,
were a great weariness to Hughie, except indeed, in the springtime, when
these ditches were running full with sun-lit