n
making his customary visit to Magarth's, he found a letter waiting for
him. It was from his sister, who expressed the delight they felt on
hearing of his having got a farm and built a house, and how his letter,
like the one he had mailed from Montreal, had passed from house to house
until everybody in the parish had read them, and they had raised quite a
'furore' about Canada and of emigration to its woods, for the
acquisition of farms of their own dazzled all. Father and mother were
well and were kept in good spirits by anticipating the day when they
would be able to join him in his fine house. He read the letter a
hundred times and vowed anew he would not turn aside until those it came
from were beside him.

On speaking to Magarth of the store of ashes he had saved and of the
slash of trees that were ready for burning, it was arranged he would
send two men if Archie would clear a way through the woods by which a
one ox-sled could pass. His frequent comings and goings across the lot
had made a foot-path, but there were decayed logs to push aside, brush
to cut here and there, and a few branches that hung low. It took three
days' work before he was satisfied a sled would have free passage. On a
Monday morning the men with the sled and oxen appeared and the burning
began. There had been a month's drouth, so the burning went well, and
when the men went back at nights the big box on the sled was filled with
ashes. At Magarth's the ashes were measured in a bushel box and emptied
into the leaches that stood beside the creek. On coming to square
accounts the ashes paid what Archie was due and left a few dollars to
his credit. Taking advantage of the return trips of the sled, he had got
his chest taken to his shanty, a quantity of short boards to make a door
and a bed, a bag of seed wheat, and a grindstone. Elated by his progress
he went to the scraping and hoeing of his clearance with a will, lifted
his potatoes, pitted them, and sowed all his seed-wheat. Then he tackled
enlarging his clearance and his daily task was again felling trees. The
weather was now often cold. He chinked the shanty but with a gaping hole
in the roof to let out the smoke it made little difference, and often he
could not get to sleep for shivering. To light a fire made it worse,
for, not being used to it, he could not stand the smoke, which choked
him and made his eyes smart. The second week in November there came a
frosty snap. Before shouldering his