little Marcel again; the boy wanted to go, and he had earned the right.
Besides, he and Nataline had struck up a close friendship on the island,
cemented during the winter by various hunting excursions after hares and
ptarmigan. Marcel was a skilful setter of snares. But Nataline was not
content until she had won consent to borrow her father's CARABINE. They
hunted in partnership. One day they had shot a fox. That is, Nataline
had shot it, though Marcel had seen it first and tracked it. Now they
wanted to try for a seal on the point of the island when the ice went
out. It was quite essential that Marcel should go.

"Besides," said Baptiste to his wife, confidentially, "a boy costs less
than a man. Why should we waste money? Marcel is best."

A peasant-hero is seldom averse to economy in small things, like money.

But there was not much play in the spring session with the light on the
island. It was a bitter job. December had been lamb-like compared with
April. First, the southeast wind kept the ice driving in along the
shore. Then the northwest wind came hurtling down from the Arctic
wilderness like a pack of wolves. There was a snow-storm of four days
and nights that made the whole world--earth and sky and sea--look like a
crazy white chaos. And through it all, that weary, dogged crank must be
kept turning--turning from dark to daylight.

It seemed as if the supply-boat would never come. At last they saw it,
one fair afternoon, April the twenty-ninth, creeping slowly down the
coast. They were just getting ready for another night's work.

Fortin ran out of the tower, took off his hat, and began to say his
prayers. The wife and the two elder girls stood in the kitchen door,
crossing themselves, with tears in their eyes. Marcel and Nataline were
coming up from the point of the island, where they had been watching for
their seal. She was singing

"Mon pere n'avait fille que moi,
Encore sur la mer il m'envoi-e-eh!"

When she saw the boat she stopped short for a minute.

"Well," she said, "they find us awake, n'est-c'pas? And if they don't
come faster than that we'll have another chance to show them how we make
the light wink, eh?"

Then she went on with her song--

"Sautez, mignonne, Cecilia.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, Cecilia!"

III

You did not suppose that was the end of the story, did you?

No, an out-of-doors story does not end like that, broken off in the
middle, with a bit of a so