it was all good-natured competition, the last man chanting his laughing
canzonet as loudly as the first.

Our hero, with his grand physique and cleverness, was not long in
mastering the tricks of the carriers. He soon learned to build up a load
and adjust a tump-line, after which practice made the carrying of a pack
almost twice his own weight a not extraordinary performance.

These trips afforded Brock an opportunity to study Indian character. He
learned much from the packman and voyageur that was destined to be of
great value to him in his career on the western frontier, among the
outposts of civilization.

Little escaped his notice. His faculties were sharpened by contact with
these children of the wilds, whose only class-room was the forest, their
only teacher, nature. As the crushed blade or broken twig were of
deepest import to the Indian scout, so no incident of his life was now
too trivial for Brock to dismiss as of no importance.




CHAPTER VII.

MUTINY AND DESERTION.


Brock could hardly reconcile the degree of punishment inflicted upon the
soldiers, the poorly paid defenders of the Empire, with their casual
offences. While he rebelled against the brutalities of some officers, he