earing:

"_Voyez, voyez, le pacquet_!" shouted by Bateese as he floundered into
the trading room without a thought of closing the door, though the
drifting snow scurried in after him. Vociferously he called to the
others to come and see, and instantly trade was stopped. The Factor,
the clerk, and the Indians, rushed to the doorway to obtain a glimpse
of the long-expected packet. For two days the storm had raged, and the
snow was still blowing in clouds that blotted out the neighbouring
forest.

"Come awa', Bateese, ye auld fule! Come awa' ben, an steek yon door!
Ye dinna see ony packet!" roared the Factor, who could distinguish
nothing through the flying snow.

"_Bien, m'sieu_, mebbe she not very clear jus' now; but w'en I pass
from de Mad Wolf's Hill, w'en de storm she lif' a leetle, I see two men
an' dog-train on de lac below de islan's," replied the half-breed
fort-hunter, who had returned from a caribou cache, and whose duty it
was to keep the fort supplied with meat.

"Weel, fetch me the gless, ma mon; fetch me the gless an' aiblins we
may catch a glint o' them through this smoorin' snaw; though I doot
it's the packet, as ye say." And the Factor stood shading his eyes and
gazing anxiously in the direction of the invisible islands. But before
the fort-hunter had returned with the telescope, the snowy veil
suddenly thinned and revealed the gray figure of a tripper coming up
the bank.

"_Quay, quay_! Ke-e-e-pling!" sang out one of the Indians. He had
recognized the tripper to be Kipling, the famous snowshoe runner.
Immediately all save the Factor rushed forward to meet the little
half-breed who was in charge of the storm-bound packet, and to welcome
him with a fusilade of gunshots.

Everyone was happy now, for last year's news of the "_Grand Pays_"--the
habitant's significant term for the outer world--had at last arrived.
The monotonous routine of the Post was forgotten. To-day the long,
dreary silence of the winter would be again broken in upon by hearty
feasting, merry music, and joyous dancing in honour of the arrival of
the half-yearly mail.

All crowded round the voyageur, who, though scarcely more than five
feet in height, was famed as a snowshoe runner throughout the
wilderness stretching from the Canadian Pacific Railroad to the Arctic
Ocean. While they were eagerly plying him with questions, the crack of
a dog-whip was heard. Soon the faint tinkling of bells came through
the storm. In a