his wages, and always ready to drink with friend or fight with foe, the
whole river admired, feared, or hated him, while his own men followed
him into the woods, on to a jam, or into a fight with equal joyousness
and devotion. Fighting was like wine to him, when the fight was worth
while, and he went into the fights his admirers were always arranging
for him with the easiest good humor and with a smile on his face. But
Macdonald Bhain's carousing, fighting days came to an abrupt stop about
three years before the opening of this tale, for on one of his summer
visits to his home, "The word of the Lord in the mouth of his servant
Alexander Murray," as he was wont to say, "found him and he was a new
man." He went into his new life with the same whole-souled joyousness as
had marked the old, and he announced that with the shanty and the river
he was "done for ever more." But after the summer's work was done, and
the logging over, and when the snap of the first frost nipped the leaves
from the trees, Macdonald became restless. He took down his broad-axe
and spent hours polishing it and bringing it to an edge, then he put it
in its wooden sheath and laid it away. But the fever was upon him, ten
thousand voices from the forest were shouting for him. He went away
troubled to his minister. In an hour he came back with the old good
humor in his face, took down the broad-axe again, and retouched it,
lovingly, humming the while the old river song of the Glengarry men--


Ho ro mo nighean, etc.


He was going back to the bush and to the biggest fight of his life. No
wonder he was glad. Then his good little wife began to get ready his
long, heavy stockings, his thick mits, his homespun smock, and other
gear, for she knew well that soon she would be alone for another