craftsmen! The muscles, all whipcord, of these rugged Canadians, part
_coureur de bois_, part scout, amazed him. One thing was not so evident
as he could have wished. Their love seemed to be more for race and
language, home and wilderness, than for King and country. Perhaps, as he
said, if the safety of their homes were threatened, they would develop
patriotism of the highest type.

But, after all, as to kings, "Who," they naively asked him, "was their
king? Surely they must be under two flags and two kings. Napoleon or
George? _Que voulez vous?_"

As their hearts seemed to be as stout as their limbs, they would, he
reflected, be unconquerable, these careless children of waste places.
While Brock thus communed, he watched. There was little to choose
between them--Narcisse, Baptiste, Louis, Jacques, Pierre--all strong as
buffalo, all agile as catamounts.

They would lift the "pieces" from the dripping canoe and land them on
the slippery rock. A minute later and Narcisse perhaps would appear, a
bit bent, to keep balanced a bag of flour, a chest of tea, a caddy of
tobacco and sundry packages of sugar or shot that made up the load
resting on his shoulders where body and nape of neck joined. This load
was supported and held together by a broad moose-hide band--a
tump-line--strapped across his forehead, his upraised hands grasping the
narrowing moose-hide stretched on either side of his lowered head,
between ear and shoulder. Brock would watch these packmen as, thus
handicapped with a load weighing from two to five hundred pounds, they
set out across the rough portage, singing, and at a dog trot, following
each other in quick succession. There was rivalry, of course, duly
encouraged by Brock with a promise of tobacco to the first man in, but