like two dogs tearing each other,--the thought was hateful.
His gorge rose at it. He would never do it, unless to save his life.
Then? Well, then, God must be his judge.

So it was that these two men stood against each other in Abbeville. Just
as strongly as Raoul was set to get into a fight, just so strongly was
Prosper set to keep out of one. It was a trial of strength between two
passions,--the passion of friendship and the passion of fighting.

Two or three things happened to put an edge on Raoul's hunger for an
out-and-out fight.

The first was the affair at the shanty on Lac des Caps. The
wood-choppers, like sailors, have a way of putting a new man through a
few tricks to initiate him into the camp. Leclere was bossing the job,
with a gang of ten men from St. Raymond under him. Vaillantcoeur had
just driven a team in over the snow with a load of provisions, and
was lounging around the camp as if it belonged to him. It was Sunday
afternoon, the regular time for fun, but no one dared to take hold of
him. He looked too big. He expressed his opinion of the camp.

"No fun in this shanty, HE? I suppose that little Leclere he makes
you others work, and say your prayers, and then, for the rest, you can
sleep. HE! Well, I am going to make a little fun for you, my boys. Come,
Prosper, get your hat, if you are able to climb a tree."

He snatched the hat from the table by the stove and ran out into the
snow. In front of the shanty a good-sized birch, tall, smooth, very
straight, was still standing. He went up the trunk like a bear.

But there was a dead balsam that had fallen against the birch and lodged
on the lower branches. It was barely strong enough to bear the weight
of a light man. Up this slanting ladder Prosper ran quickly in his
moccasined feet, snatched the hat from Raoul's teeth as he swarmed up
the trunk, and ran down again. As he neared the ground, the balsam,
shaken from its lodgement, cracked and fell. Raoul was left up the tree,
perched among the branches, out of breath. Luck had set the scene for
the lumberman's favourite trick.

"Chop him down! chop him down" was the cry; and a trio of axes were
twanging against the birch tree, while the other men shouted and laughed
and pelted the tree with ice to keep the prisoner from climbing down.

Prosper neither shouted nor chopped, but he grinned a little as he
watched the tree quiver and shake, and heard the rain of "SACRES!" and
"MAUDITS!" that came out o