keeping her busy at times."

"When the deer are running, eh, Ranald," said Murdie, good-naturedly.
"But Ranald's right, boys," he continued, "give the man a chance, say
I."

"There's our bells," cried Thomas Finch, as the deep, musical boom of
the Finch's sleigh-bells came through the bush. "Come on, Hughie, we'll
get them at the cross." And followed by Hughie and the boys from the
north, he set off for the north cross-roads, where they would meet
the Finch's bob-sleighs coming empty from the saw-mill, to the great
surprise and unalloyed delight of Mr. and Mrs. Bushy, who from their
crotch in the old beech had watched with some anxiety the boys' unusual
conduct.

"There they are, Hughie," called Thomas, as the sleighs came out into
the open at the crossroads. "They'll wait for us. They know you're
coming," he yelled, encouragingly, for the big boys had left the smaller
ones, a panting train, far in the rear, and were piling themselves
upon the Finch's sleighs, with never a "by your leave" to William
John--familiarly known as Billy Jack--Thomas' eldest brother, who drove
the Finch's team.

Thomas' home lay a mile north and another east from the Twentieth
cross-roads, but the winter road by which they hauled saw-logs to the
mill, cut right through the forest, where the deep snow packed hard
into a smooth track, covering roots and logs and mud holes, and making
a perfect surface for the sleighs, however heavily loaded, except where
here and there the pitch-holes or cahots came. These cahots, by the way,
though they became, especially toward the spring, a serious annoyance