enty of the raftsmen
came with wild speed down the river, and as there had been no rush to
get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the cribs on which the men
stood were so hard aground that no lives were in danger. It meant much
to him; it meant that he was instantly at liberty to gather in
_money_! money, in sums that loomed to gigantic figures before his
imagination.

He knew that there was an important reason for hurrying the deals to
Quebec, else the great risk of running a band at that season would not
have been undertaken; and he knew that hard cash would be paid down as
salvage for all planks brought ashore, and thus secured from drifting
far and wide over the lake-like expanse below the rapid's foot. Little
Baptiste plunged his oars in and made for a clump of deals floating in
the eddy near his own shore. As he rushed along, the raftsmen's boat
crossed his bows, going to the main raft below for ropes and material
to secure the cribs coming down intact.

"Good boy!" shouted the foreman to Baptiste. "Ten cents for every deal
you fetch ashore above the raft!" Ten cents! he had expected but
five! What a harvest!

Striking his pike-pole into the clump of deals,--"fifty at least,"
said joyful Baptiste,--he soon secured them to his boat, and then
pulled, pulled, pulled, till the blood rushed to his head, and his
arms ached, before he landed his wealth.

"Father!" cried he, bursting breathlessly into the sleeping household.
"Come quick! I can't get it up without you."

"Big sturgeon?" cried the shantyman, jumping into his trousers.

"Oh, but we shall have a good fish breakfast!" cried Delima.

"Did I not say the blessed _le bon Dieu_ would send plenty fish?"
observed _Memere_.

"Not a fish!" cried little Baptiste, with recovered breath. "But look!
look!" and he flung open the door. The eddy was now white with planks.

"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The foreman told me."

"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "_Bapteme!_ it's my winter's wages!"

And the old grandmother! And Delima? Why, they just put their arms
round each other and cried for joy.

"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima, starting up. "And they
will work hard, hard."

At that instant who should reach the door but Monsieur Conolly! He was
a man who respected cash wherever he found it, and already the two
Baptistes had a fine show ashore.

"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely, putting in his head, "of
course you know I was only j