Madame Chapdelaine, liking him, and feeling a great sympathy for his
solitary labour in this worthy cause, gave him a few words of
encouragement. "You don't make very quick progress by yourself, that
is true enough, but a man lives on very little when he is alone, and
then your brother Egide will be coming back from the drive with two
or three hundred dollars at least, in time for the hay-making and
the harvest, and, if you both stay here next winter, in less than
two years you will have a good farm."

Assenting with a nod, his glance found Maria, as though drawn
thither by the thought that in two years, fortune favouring, he
might hope.

"How does the drive go?" asked Esdras. "Is there any news from that
quarter?"

"I had word through Ferdina Larouche, a son of Thadee Larouche of
Honfleur, who got back from La Tuque last month. He said that things
were going well; the men were not having too bad a time."

The shanties, the drive, these are the two chief heads of the great
lumbering industry, even of greater importance for the Province of
Quebec than is farming. From October till April the axes never cease
falling, while sturdy horses draw the logs over the snow to the
banks of the frozen rivers; and, when spring comes, the piles melt
one after another into the rising waters and begin their long
adventurous journey through the rapids. At every abrupt turn, at
every fall, where logs jam and pile, must be found the strong and
nimble river-drivers, practised at the dangerous work, at making
their way across the floating timber, breaking the jams, aiding with