etween my shoulders, and a score o' them oily varmints
a-shoutin', and yellin', and flourishing their spears in search o' me."

"Tell us how it happened, Massan. Let's hear the story," chorused the
men, as they closed round their comrade.

"Well then," began the stout backwoodsman, proceeding leisurely to fill
his pipe from an ornamented bag that hung at his belt, "here goes. It
was about the year--a--I forget the year, but it don't matter--that we
were ordered off on an expedition to the Huskies; 'xactly sich a one as
they wants us to go on now, and--but you've heerd o' that business,
lads, haven't you?"

"Yes, yes, we've heard all about it; go on."

"Well," continued Massan, "I needn't be wastin' time tellin' you how we
failed in that affair, and how the Huskies killed some of our men and
burnt our ship to the water's edge. After it was all over, and they
thought they had killed us all, I was, as I said, lyin' behind a great
rock in a sort o' cave, lookin' at the dirty villains as they danced
about on the shore, and took possession of all our goods. Suddenly I
seed two o' them carry Peter down to the beach, an' I saw, as they
passed me, that he was quite dead. In less time than I can count a
hundred they took the skin off him, cut off his head, sewed up the hole,
tied his arms and legs in a knot, blew him full o' wind till he was fit
to bu'st, an' then hung him up to dry in the sun! In fact, they made a
_dan_ of him!"

A loud shout of laughter greeted this startling conclusion. In truth,
we must do Massan the justice to say, that although he was much in the
habit of amusing his companions by entertaining them with anecdotes
which originated entirely in his own teeming fancy, he never actually
_deceived_ them, but invariably, either by a sly glance or by the
astounding nature of his communication, gave them to understand that he
was dealing not with fact but fiction.

"But seriously, lads," said Francois, whose intelligence, added to a
grave, manly countenance and a tall, muscular frame, caused him to be
regarded by his comrades as a sort of leader both in action and in
council, "what do you think of our bourgeois' plan? For my part, I'm
willing enough to go to any reasonable part o' the country where there
are furs and Indians; but as for this Ungava, from what Massan says,
there's neither Indians, nor furs, nor victuals--nothin' but rocks, and
mountains, and eternal winter; and if we do get the Huskies