sette with fierce and friendly emphasis,
driving away at a reckless pace. "See now, this is it. This is my
affair. It will be my church, and my friend, Mister Romeo Desnoyers of
Three Rivers, shall build it. Bigosh--_excusez_; I'll have only
friends in it; you're my friend, I am good Methodist since I hear you
preach, and Goddam,--well, _excusez_ again, sir, I'll have you and no
other. We'll say July, and you will have one, two, three months to get
the sermon ready. Get on there, _m'rch donc, animal-l-l_! I am too
long away from my business."

Ringfield, who was right in supposing that his friend and patron had
tasted of the "viskey blanc" before starting, refrained from any
criticism of the scheme, promising his services merely, should they be
required, and that evening saw him depart for the west to attend a
course of lectures at a theological college. Before many hours the
tumbling, foaming Fall, the lonely river, the Bois Clair settlement and
Poussette were almost forgotten. A camping trip with friendly
Ontarians succeeded the lectures, then ensued a fortnight of hard
reading and preparation for the essay or thesis which his Church
demanded from him as token of his standing and progress, he being as
yet a probationer, and thus the summer passed by until on the 6th of
August a letter reached him from the Lower Province bidding him attend
at the opening services of the new Methodist church recently built at
St. Ignace through the enterprise and liberality of M. Amable
Poussette. The letter, in Canadian French, had an English postscript;
"I pay all expense. Me, Amable Poussette, of Juchereau de St. Ignace."

Ringfield put the letter away with a frown. He was busy, in demand,
ambitious. Born in one of the Maritime Provinces, he owed all he was
to Ontario, and now--Ontario claimed him. Return he might some day to
the rapid rivers, the lonely hills, the great forests and the remote
villages, but not now. Now, just as he was beginning to fill his
place, to feel his power, to live and work, and above all preach, a man
among men, a man for men, he resented any interruption in his plan of
existence, in his scheme of self-consecration. The big bustling cities
of Western Ontario and of the State of Ohio, where some of his holidays
had been spent, were very far away from the hamlet of Juchereau de St.
Ignace, a mere handful of souls--yes, Souls, and here Ringfield stopped
and reconsidered. After all, there was