the
camp, having the dogs as their protectors, though neither primitive nor
civilized life menaced them there with any danger. Some evenings, when
few affairs had crowded the day, Brown sat like a patriarch in the midst
of his family, and took Gougou on his knee to hear bear stories. He
supervised the youngster's manners like a mother, and Gougou learned to
go down to the washing-place and use soap when the signs were strong for
bear-dens and deer-stalking.

"I saw a bear come out on the beach once," Brown would tell him, "when
I was stalking for deer and had a doe and fawn in the lake. I smelt him,
but couldn't get him to turn his eyes towards me. I killed both deer,
and skinned them, and cut up one. And that bear went into the woods and
howled for hours. I took all the venison I could carry, but left part
of the carcasses. When we went after them in the morning, the bear had
eaten all up clean."

Bear-dens, Gougou was informed, might be found where there was a
windfall. The bears stuffed cracks between the fallen trees with moss,
and so made themselves a tight house in which to hibernate. If you were
obliged to have bear meat that season when the game was thin, you
could cut a hole into a den, stand by it with an axe, and lop off the
inquiring head stuck out to investigate disturbances. Bears had very
small stomachs, but whatever they ate went to fat. They walked much on
their hind feet, and browsed on nuts or mast when their hunting was not
successful, being able to thrive on little. Usually a father, a mother,
and a cub formed one household in one den.

Brown's mind ran on the subject of households; and he sometimes talked
to Francoise about his mother.

"My mother Gaelics like the Scotch," he said. Francoise could not
imagine what it was to Gaelic. People had not Gaelic-ed on the
Chaudiere, where she was brought up until the children were obliged
to scatter from the narrow farm. But the priest had never warned her
against it, and since M'sieu' Brownee's mother was addicted to the
practice, it must be something excellent, perhaps even religious. She
secretly invoked St. Francis, her patron saint, to obtain for her
that mysterious power of Gaelic-ing of which M'sieu' Brownee spoke so
tenderly.

So the summer passed, and frost was already ripening to glory the ranks
on ranks of dense forest pressing to the lake borders. Brown and Puttany
rowed home through an early September evening, lifted their boat to its
c