in public would he break the
news to Mac--"you'll be back in time for the big Blow-Out." To clinch
matters, he accompanied Nicholas from the cabin to the river trail,
explaining: "You savvy? Big feast--all same Indian. Heap good grub. No
prayer-meetin'--you savvy?--no church this time. Big fire, big feed.
All kinds--apples, shuhg, bacon--no cook him, you no like," he added,
basely truckling to the Prince's peculiar taste.

Nicholas rolled his single eye in joyful anticipation, and promised
faithfully to grace the scene.

* * * * *

This was all very fine ... but Father Wills! The last thing at night
and the first thing in the morning the Boy looked the problem in the
face, and devised now this, now that, adroit and disarming fashion of
breaking the news to Mac.

But it was only when the daring giver of invitations was safely in bed,
and Mac equally safe down in the Little Cabin, that it seemed possible
to broach the subject. He devised scenes in which, airily and
triumphantly, he introduced Father Wills, and brought Mac to the point
of pining for Jesuit society; but these scenes were actable only under
conditions of darkness and of solitude. The Colonel refused to have
anything to do with the matter.

"Our first business, as I see it, is to keep peace in the camp, and
hold fast to a good understanding with one another. It's just over
little things like this that trouble begins. Mac's one of us; Father
Wills is an outsider. I won't rile Mac for the sake of any Jesuit
alive. No, sir; this is _your_ funeral, and you're obliged to attend."

Before three of Nicholas's five sleeps were accomplished, the Boy began
to curse the hour he had laid eyes on Father Wills. He began even to
speculate desperately on the good priest's chances of tumbling into an
air-hole, or being devoured by a timely wolf. But no, life was never so
considerate as that. Yet he could neither face being the cause of the
first serious row in camp, nor endure the thought of having his
particular guest--drat him!--flouted, and the whole House-Warming
turned to failure and humiliation.

Indeed, the case looked desperate. Only one day more now before he
would appear--be flouted, insulted, and go off wounded, angry, leaving
the Boy with an irreconciliable quarrel against Mac, and the
House-Warming turned to chill recrimination and to wretchedness.

But until the last phantasmal hope went down before the logic of events
it