water, over the mottled
clay bottom and gravelly ripples. But the bush roads and paths, summer
and winter, were filled with things of wonder and of beauty, and this
particular winter road of the Finch's was best of all to Hughie, for it
was quite new to him, and besides, it led right through the mysterious,
big pine swamp and over the butternut ridge, beyond which lay the
Finch's farm. Balsam-trees, tamarack, spruce, and cedar made up the
thick underbrush of the pine swamp, white birch, white ash, and black
were thickly sprinkled through it, but high above these lesser trees
towered the white pines, lifting their great, tufted crests in lonely
grandeur, seeming like kings among meaner men. Here and there the rabbit
runways, packed into hard little paths, crossed the road and disappeared
under the thick spruces and balsams; here and there, the sly, single
track of the fox, or the deep hoof-mark of the deer, led off into
unknown depths on either side. Hughie, sitting up on the bolster of the
front bob beside Billy Jack, for even the big boys recognized his right,
as Thomas' guest, to that coveted place, listened with eager face and
wide-open eyes to Billy Jack's remarks upon the forest and its strange
people.

One thing else added to Hughie's keen enjoyment of the ride. Billy
Jack's bays were always in the finest of fettle, and pulled hard on the
lines, and were rarely allowed the rapture of a gallop. But when the
swamp was passed and the road came to the more open butternut ridge,
Billy Jack shook the lines over their backs and let them out. Their
response was superb to witness, and brought Hughie some moments of
ecstatic rapture. Along the hard-packed road that wound about among the
big butternuts, the rangey bays sped at a flat gallop, bounding clear
over the cahots, the booming of the bells and the rattling of the chains
furnishing an exhilarating accompaniment to the swift, swaying motion,
while the children clung for dear life to the bob-sleighs and to each
other. It was all Billy Jack could do to get his team down to a trot by
the time they reached the clearing, for there the going was perilous,
and besides, it was just as well that his father should not witness
any signs on Billy Jack's part of the folly that he was inclined to
attribute to the rising generation. So steadily enough the bays trotted
up the lane and between long lines of green cordwood on one side and
a hay-stack on the other, into the yard, and sw