The Canadian turned to his wolf-dog.

"_Peuff_! Golemar! Loneliness sits badly upon our friend. He is
homesick. Trot over the hill and bring to him the petite Medaine! Ah
_oui_," he laughed in immense enjoyment at his raillery, "bring to him
the petite Medaine to make him laugh and be happy." Then, seeing that
the man was struggling vainly for a semblance of cheeriness, he slid
beside him on the bench and tousled his hair with one big hand. "Nev'
min' old Ba'teese," he said hurriedly; "he joke when eet is no time.
You worry, huh? So, mebbe, Ba'teese help. There are men at the
boarding house."

"The Blackburn crowd?"

"So. Seven carpenters, and others. They work for Blackburn, who is in
Chicago. They are here to build a mill."

"A mill?" Barry looked up now with new interest. "Where?"

"Near the lake. The mill, eet will be sawing in a month. The rest,
the big plant, eet will take time for that."

"On Medaine's land then!" But Ba'tiste shook his head.

"No. Eet is on the five acres own' by Jerry Martin. He has been try'
to sell eet for five year. Eet is no good--rocks and rocks--and rocks.
They build eet there."

"But what can they do on five acres? Where will they get their lumber?"

The trapper shrugged his shoulders.

"Ba'teese on'y know what they tell heem."

"But surely, there must be some mistake about it. You say they are
going to start sawing in a month, and that a bigger plant is going up.
Do you mean a complete outfit,--planers and all that sort of thing?"

"So!"

Houston shook his head.

"For the life of me, I can't see it. In the first place, I have the
only timber around here with the exception of Medaine's land, and you
say that she doesn't come into that until next year. But they're going
to start sawing at this new mill within a month. My timber stretches
back from the lake for eight miles; they either will have to go beyond
that and truck in the logs for that distance, which would be ruinous as
far as profits are concerned, or content themselves with scrub pine and
sapling spruce. I don't see what they can make out of that. Isn't
that right? All I know about it is from what I've heard. I've never
made a cruise of the territory around here. But it's always been my
belief that with the exception of the land on the other quarter of the
lake--"

"That is all."

"Then where--"

But again Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders. Then he pulled long at his
grizzled