at being made the sport of
Owen's stubbornness. Learning in the Fur Company's office that Owen had
received news from the old country in the latest mail sent out of New
York, he was beside himself, and Amable Morin's girl was forgotten. He
began to believe he had never thought of her.

"Sure, the old man Morin and me had some words and a dhrink over it, was
all. I did but dance wid her and pinch her cheek. A man niver knows what
he does on Mackinac till he comes to himself in the winter camps wid a
large family on his moind."

"The blarney of your lip doesn't desave me, John McGillis," responded
his cousin the cobbler, with grimness.

"But whin will ye give me the word you've got, Owen?"

"I'll not give it to ye till the boats go out."

"Will ye tell me, is the colleen alive, thin?"

"I've tould ye ye're not a widdy."

"If the colleen is alive, the towken would be sint to me."

"Thin ye've got it," said Owen.

Poor John smoked, biting hard on his pipe-stem. Ignorance, and
the helplessness of a limited man who is more a good animal than a
discerning soul; time, the slow transmission of news, his fixed state
as a voyageur--all these things were against him. He could not adjust
himself to any facts, and his feelings sometimes approached the melting
state. It was no use to war with Owen Cunning, whom he was ashamed
of handling roughly. The cobbler sat with swollen and bandaged face,
talking out of a slit, still bullying him.

But the time came for his brigade to go out, and then there was action,
decision, positive life once more. It went far northward, and was first
to depart, in order to reach winter-quarters before snow should fly.

At the log dock the boats waited, twelve of them in this outfit, each
one a mighty Argo, rowed by a dozen pairs of oars, and with centre-piece
for stepping a mast. Hundreds of pounds they could carry, and a crew of
fifteen men. The tarpaulin used for a night covering and to shelter the
trading-goods from storms was large as the roof of a house.

Quiescent on lapping water they rested, their loads and each man's
baggage of twenty or fewer pounds packed tightly to place.

The cobbler from the Devil's Kitchen was in the crowd thronging dock and
shore. The villagers were there, saying farewells, and all the voyageurs
who were soon to go out in other brigades snuffed as war-horses ready
for the charge. The life of the woods, which was their true life, again
drew them. They could sca