than by the Reverend Alexander Munro,
the douce old bachelor Presbyterian minister of Maplehill, a great lover
of the pipes and a special friend of Piper Sutherland. But the welcome
was hardly over when once more the sound of the pipes was heard far up
the side line.

"Surely that will be Gunn," said Mr. Munro.

Sutherland listened for a minute or two.

"No, it iss not Gunn. Iss Ross coming? No, yon iss not Ross. That
will be a stranger," he continued, turning to the secretary, but
the secretary remained silent, enjoying the old man's surprise and
perplexity.

"Man, that iss not so bad piping! Not so bad at all! Who iss it?" he
added with some impatience, turning upon the secretary again.

"Oh, that's Haley's team and I guess that's his hired man, a young
fellow just out from Scotland," replied the secretary indifferently. "I
am no great judge of the pipes myself, but he strikes me as a crackajack
and I shouldn't be surprised if he would make you all sit up."

But the old piper's ear was closed to his words and open only to the
strains of music ever drawing nearer.

"Aye, yon's a piper!" he said at length with emphasis. "Yon's a piper!"

"I only wish I had discovered him in time for a competition," said Fatty
regretfully.

"Aye," said Sutherland. "Yon's a piper worth playing against."

And very brave and gallant young Cameron looked as Tim swung his team
through the fence and up to the platform under the trees where the
great ones of the people were standing in groups. They were all there,
Patterson the M.P.P., and Dr. Kane the Opposition candidate, Reeve
Robertson, for ten years the Municipal head of his county, Inspector
Grant, a little man with a massive head and a luminous eye, Patterson's
understudy and generally regarded as his successor in Provincial
politics, the Reverend Harper Freeman, Methodist minister, tall
and lank, with shrewd kindly face and a twinkling eye, the Reverend
Alexander Munro, the Presbyterian minister, solid and sedate, slow to
take fire but when kindled a very furnace for heat. These, with their
various wives and daughters, such as had them, and many others less
notable but no less important, constituted a sort of informal reception
committee under Fatty Freeman's general direction and management.
And here and there and everywhere crowds of young men and maidens,
conspicuous among the latter Isa MacKenzie and her special friends,
made merry with each other, as brave and gallant