The wind, which was fair down the lake, here blew in squarely on the
beach, kicking up a nasty sea in the shallows. The men of the
departing boat waded in high rubber boots as they shoved it out
toward deeper water. Twice they did this. Clambering aboard and
failing to row clear, the boat was swept back and grounded. Kit
noticed that the spray on the sides of the boat quickly turned to
ice. The third attempt was a partial success. The last two men to
climb in were wet to their waists, but the boat was afloat. They
struggled awkwardly at the heavy oars, and slowly worked off shore.
Then they hoisted a sail made of blankets, had it carried away in a
gust, and were swept a third time back on the freezing beach.

Kit grinned to himself and went on. This was what he must expect to
encounter, for he, too, in his new role of gentleman's man, was to
start from the beach in a similar boat that very day.

Everywhere men were at work, and at work desperately, for the
closing down of winter was so imminent that it was a gamble whether
or not they would get across the great chain of lakes before the
freeze-up. Yet, when Kit arrived at the tent of Messrs Sprague and
Stine, he did not find them stirring.

By a fire, under the shelter of a tarpaulin, squatted a short, thick
man smoking a brown-paper cigarette.

"Hello," he said. "Are you Mister Sprague's new man?"

As Kit nodded, he thought he had noted a shade of emphasis on the
mister and the man, and he was sure of a hint of a twinkle in the