e toil, for most of the hay that had been cut
was already in cock or in the barn. Besides, Haley worked as hard as the
best of them and welcomed a day's rest. So let it rain!

While they lay upon the hay on the barn floor, with tired muscles
all relaxed, drinking in the fragrant airs that stole in from the
rain-washed skies outside, in the slackening of the rain two neighbours
dropped in, big "Mack" Murray and his brother Danny, for a "crack" about
things in general and especially to discuss the Dominion Day picnic
which was coming off at the end of the following week. This picnic
was to be something out of the ordinary, for, in addition to the usual
feasting and frolicking, there was advertised an athletic contest of
a superior order, the prizes in which were sufficiently attractive
to draw, not only local athletes, but even some of the best from the
neighbouring city. A crack runner was expected and perhaps even McGee,
the big policeman of the London City force, a hammer thrower of fame,
might be present.

"Let him come, eh, Mack?" said Perkins. "I guess we ain't afraid of no
city bug beating you with the hammer."

"Oh! I'm no thrower," said Mack modestly. "I just take the thing up and
give it a fling. I haven't got the trick of it at all."

"Have you practised much?" said Cameron, whose heart warmed at the
accent that might have been transplanted that very day from his own
North country.

"Never at all, except now and then at the blacksmith's shop on a rainy
day," replied Mack. "Have you done anything at it?"

"Oh, I have seen a good deal of it at the games in the north of
Scotland," replied Cameron.

"Man! I wish we had a hammer and you could show me the trick of it,"
said Mack fervently, "for they will be looking to me to throw and I do
not wish to be beaten just too easily."

"There's a big mason's hammer," said Tim, "in the tool house, I think."

"Get it, Tim, then," said Mack eagerly, "and we will have a little
practise at it, for throw I must, and I have no wish to bring discredit
on my country, for it will be a big day. They will be coming from all
over. The Band of the Seventh is coming out and Piper Sutherland from
Zorra will be there."

"A piper!" echoed Cameron. "Is there much pipe playing in this country?"

"Indeed, you may say that!" said Mack, "and good pipers they are too,
they tell me. Piper Sutherland, I think, was of the old Forty-twa. Are
you a piper, perhaps?" continued Mack.

"Oh,