t for you!"

"I ain't promise not'ing yet," said Bela warningly.

* * * * *

Johnny Gagnon's place was at the strategic point on Musquasepi where
the forest ended and the meadows began. In the winter-time the
freighters left the ice here, and headed straight across the bottom
lands for the lake.

Gagnon kept a stopping-house for the freighters. It was the last house
on the route to the head of the lake seventy-five miles away,
excepting the shack at Nine-Mile Point, which had never been occupied
until Big Jack and his party camped there.

Besides being a strategic point, it was one of those natural sites for
a homestead that men pick out when there is a whole land to choose
from. The bank rolled up gradually from the water's edge, and Gagnon's
whole establishment was revealed from the river--dwelling, bunk-house,
stable--all built of logs and crouching low on the ground as if for
warmth.

The buildings had been there so long they had become a part of the
landscape. The log walls were weathered to a silvery grey, and the
vigorously sprouting sod roofs repeated the note of the surrounding
grass.

On this particular afternoon there was something afoot at Johnny
Gagnon's. The different members of the large family were running about
like ants in a disturbed hill. A cloud of dust was issuing from the
house door, propelled by a resolute broom.

Innumerable pails of water were being carried up from the river, and
windows and children washed impartially. One of the big boys was
burning rubbish; another was making a landing-stage of logs on the
muddy shore.

In any other place such a spasm of house-cleaning need excite no
remark, but among the happy-go-lucky natives of the north it is
portentous. Clearly a festival was imminent.

Such was the sight that met the eyes of those in the rowboat and the
dugout as they came around the bend above. Johnny Gagnon himself came
running down to meet them. He was a little man, purely Indian in
feature and colouring, but betraying a vivacity which suggested the
French ancestor who had provided him with a surname.

The surname lasts longer than most white characteristics. It is a
prized possession up north. If a man has a surname he votes.

Johnny was a vivacious Indian. Such anomalies are not uncommon on the
border of the wilderness. His sloe-black eyes were prone to snap and
twinkle, and his lips to part over dazzling teeth.

His hands helped ou