"Home?" asked his son.

"Yes, Montreal--to-night," replied his father. "The leg has to be set."

"Why don't you set it?" asked the boy.

The river-master gazed at him attentively. "Well, I might, with your
help," he said. "Come along."




CHAPTER II

ELEVEN YEARS PASS

Eleven years had passed since Denzil's fall, and in that time much
history had been made. Carnac Grier, true to his nature, had travelled
from incident to incident, from capacity to capacity, apparently without
system, yet actually with the keenest desire to fulfil himself; with an
honesty as inveterate as his looks were good and his character filled
with dark recesses. In vain had his father endeavoured to induce him to
enter the lumber business; to him it seemed too conventional and fixed.

Yet, in his way, he knew the business well. By instinct, over the
twenty-five years of his life, he had observed and become familiar with
the main features of the work. He had once or twice even buried himself
in the shanties of the backwoods, there to inhale and repulse the fetid
air, to endure the untoward, half-savage life, the clean, strong food,
the bitter animosities and the savage friendships. It was a land where