ed the pine into such a beam as we
see piled in our English timber yards.

What was Arthur's surprise to recognise, in the mass of lumberers
gathered round a huge mast, the Milesian countenance of Murty Keefe, a
discontented emigrant with whom he had picked up a casual acquaintance
on the steamboat which took him to Montreal. He was dressing away the
knots near the top with his axe, as though he had been used to the
implement all his life. When, after infinite trouble and shouting in all
tongues, the half-dozen span of strong patient oxen were set in motion,
dragging the seventy-feet length of timber along the snow towards the
lake, Arthur contrived to get near enough to his countryman for audible
speech. Murty's exaggerated expectations had suffered a grievous eclipse;
still, if he became an expert hewer, he might look forward to earning
more than a curate's salary by his axe. And they were well fed: he had
more meat in a week now than in a twelvemonth in Ireland. He was one of
half-a-dozen Irishmen in this lumberers' party of French Canadians,
headed by a Scotch foreman; for through Canada, where address and
administrative ability are required, it is found that Scotchmen work
themselves into the highest posts.

During the rude but abundant dinner which followed, this head of the
gang gave Argent some further bits of information about the lumber
trade.

'We don't go about at random, and fell trees where we like,' said he.
'We've got a double tax to pay: first, ground rent per acre per annum
for a licence, and then a duty of a cent for every cubic foot of timber
we bring to market. Then, lest we should take land and not work it, we
are compelled to produce a certain quantity of wood from every acre of
forest we rent, under pain of forfeiting our licence.'

'And will you not have it all cut down some day? Then what is the
country to do for fuel and the world for ships?'

The foreman rubbed his rusty beard with a laugh.

'There's hundreds of years of lumbering in the Bytown district alone,'
said he; 'why, sir, it alone comprehends sixty thousand square miles of
forest.'

CHAPTER XXV.

CHILDREN OF THE FOREST.

There could hardly be a wider contrast than between Captain Argent's
usual dinner at his regimental mess, and that of which he now partook in
the lumbermen's shanty. Tables and chairs were as unknown as forks and
dishes among the _gens de chantier_; a large pot of tea, dipped into by
everybody's p