choppers, like sailors, have a way of putting a new man through a
few tricks to initiate him into the camp. Leclere was bossing the
job, with a gang of ten men from St. Raymond under him.
Vaillantcoeur had just driven a team in over the snow with a load of
provisions, and was lounging around the camp as if it belonged to
him. It was Sunday afternoon, the regular time for fun, but no one
dared to take hold of him. He looked too big. He expressed his
opinion of the camp.

"No fun in this shanty, HE? I suppose that little Leclere he makes
you others work, and say your prayers, and then, for the rest, you
can sleep. HE! Well, I am going to make a little fun for you, my
boys. Come, Prosper, get your hat, if you are able to climb a tree."

He snatched the hat from the table by the stove and ran out into the
snow. In front of the shanty a good-sized birch, tall, smooth, very
straight, was still standing. He went up the trunk like a bear.

But there was a dead balsam that had fallen against the birch and
lodged on the lower branches. It was barely strong enough to bear
the weight of a light man. Up this slanting ladder Prosper ran
quickly in his moccasined feet, snatched the hat from Raoul's teeth
as he swarmed up the trunk, and ran down again. As he neared the
ground, the balsam, shaken from its lodgement, cracked and fell.
Raoul was left up the tree, perched among the branches, out of
breath. Luck had set the scene for the lumberman's favourite trick.

"Chop him down! chop him down" was the cry; and a trio of axes were
twanging against the birch tree, while the other men shouted and
laughed and pelted the tree with ice to keep the prisoner from