se upon
Quebec, there was an interval of silence, during which I succeeded in
hooking and playing a larger trout than usual. As the fish came up to
the side of the canoe, Patrick netted him deftly, exclaiming with an
abstracted air, "It is a boy, after all. I like that best."

Our camp was shifted, the second week, to the Grand Lac des Cedres; and
there we had extraordinary fortune with the trout: partly, I conjecture,
because there was only one place to fish, and so Patrick's uneasy zeal
could find no excuse for keeping me in constant motion all around the
lake. But in the matter of weather we were not so happy. There is always
a conflict in the angler's mind about the weather--a struggle between
his desires as a man and his desires as a fisherman. This time our
prayers for a good fishing season were granted at the expense of our
suffering human nature. There was a conjunction in the zodiac of the
signs of Aquarius and Pisces. It rained as easily, as suddenly, as
penetratingly, as Miss Miller talked; but in between the showers the
trout were very hungry.

One day, when we were paddling home to our tents among the birch trees,
one of these unexpected storms came up; and Patrick, thoughtful of
my comfort as ever, insisted on giving me his coat to put around my
dripping shoulders. The paddling would serve instead of a coat for him,
he said; it would keep him warm to his bones. As I slipped the garment
over my back, something hard fell from one of the pockets into the
bottom of the canoe. It was a brier-wood pipe.

"Aha! Pat," I cried; "what is this? You said you had thrown all your
pipes away. How does this come in your pocket?"

"But, m'sieu'," he answered, "this is different. This is not the pipe
pure and simple. It is a souvenir. It is the one you gave me two years
ago on the Metabetchouan, when we got the big caribou. I could not
reject this. I keep it always for the remembrance."

At this moment my hand fell upon a small, square object in the other
pocket of the coat. I pulled it out. It was a cake of Virginia leaf.
Without a word, I held it up, and looked at Patrick. He began to explain
eagerly:

"Yes, certainly, it is the tobacco, m'sieu'; but it is not for the
smoke, as you suppose. It is for the virtue, for the self-victory. I
call this my little piece of temptation. See; the edges are not cut. I
smell it only; and when I think how it is good, then I speak to myself,
'But the little found child will be bet