him also some of the things which the Germans did to the Christian
people in Belgium and Northern France. I will narrate them to you
later."

"M'sieu'," says Iside, dipping his paddle deeper as we round the
sharp corner of a rock, "I shall remember all that you tell me, and
I shall tell it again to our priest. You know we have few newspapers
here. Most of us could not read them, anyway. I am not well convinced
that we yet comprehend, here in French Canada, the meaning of
this war. But we shall endeavor to comprehend it better. And when
we comprehend, we shall be ready to do our duty--you can trust
yourself to the men of _Sacre Coeur_ for that. We love peace--we
all about here _(nous autres d'icite)--but we can fight like the
devil when we know it is for a good cause--liberty, for example._
Meanwhile would M'sieu' like to stop at the pool _'La Pinette'_
on the way down and try a couple of casts? There was a big salmon
rising there yesterday."

That very evening a runner comes up the river, through the woods,
to tell Iside and Eugene, who are Selectmen of the community of
_Sacre Coeur,_ that they must come down to the village for an
important meeting at ten o'clock the next morning.

So they set off, quite as a matter of course, for their thirty-five
mile tramp through the forest in the dark. They are good citizens,
as well as good woodsmen, you understand. On the second day they
are back again at their work in the canoe.

"Well, Iside," I ask, "how was it with the meeting yesterday? All
correct?"