"Notting--me bon," said Perrotte, and, clutching at the door jamb, hung
there gasping.

Maitland's keen blue eyes searched his face. "Huh! When did you last
eat? Come! No lying!"

"Two day," said Perrotte, fighting for breath and nerve.

"Here, boy," shouted Maitland to a chore lad slouching by, "jump for
that cook house and fetch a cup of coffee, and be quick."

The boss' tone injected energy into the gawky lad. In three minutes
Perrotte was seated on a pile of slabs, drinking a cup of coffee; in
five minutes more he stood up, ready for "(h)anny man, (h)anny ting."
But Maitland took him to the cook.

"Fill this man up," he said, "and then show him where to sleep. And,
Perrotte, to-morrow morning at seven you be at the tail of the saw."

"Oui, by gar! Perrotte be dere. And you got one good man TOO-day, for
sure."

That was fifteen years ago, and, barring certain "jubilations," Perrotte
made good his prophecy. He brought up from the Ottawa his Irish wife,
a clever woman with her tongue but a housekeeper that scandalised her
thrifty, tidy, French-Canadian mother-in-law, and his two children, a
boy and a girl. Under the supervision of his boss he made for his family
a home and for himself an assured place in the Blackwater Mills. His
children fell into the hands of a teacher with a true vocation for his