besetting foible--his eyes shone like carbuncles with
unholy light. He was the plague of the family. Of course, therefore,
he was the beloved of his parents.

Such were the chief inmates of Willow Creek, as old Ravenshaw styled his
house and property.

It was midwinter. The owner of Willow Creek stood at his parlour
window, smoking and gazing. There was not much to look at, for snow had
overwhelmed and buried the landscape, fringed every twig of the willows,
and obliterated the frozen river.

Elsie was seated by the stove, embroidering a pair of moccasins.

"Victor is bringing down some of the lads to shoot to-day, father," she
said, casting a furtive glance at her sire.

"Humph! that boy does nothing but shoot," growled the old man, who was a
giant in body if not in spirit. "Who all is he bringing?"

"There's John Flett, and David Mowat, and Sam Hayes, and Herr
Winklemann, and Ian Macdonald, and Louis Lambert--all the best shots, I
suppose," said Elsie, bending over her work.

"The best shots!" cried Mr Ravenshaw, turning from the window with a
sarcastic laugh. "Louis Lambert, indeed, and Winklemann are crack
shots, and John Flett is not bad, but the others are poor hands. Mowat
can only shoot straight with a crooked gun, and as for that half-cracked
schoolmaster, Jan Macdonald, he would miss a barn door at fifty paces
unless he were to shut his eyes and fire at random, in which case he'd
have some chance--"

"Here they is; the shooters is comin'. Hooray!" shouted Master Anthony
Ravenshaw, as he burst into the room with a scalping-knife in one hand
and a wooden gun in the other. "An' I's goin' to shoot too, daddy!"

"So you are, Tony, my boy!" cried the old trader, catching up the pride
of his heart in his strong arms and tossing him towards the ceiling.
"You shall shoot before long with a real gun."

Tony knocked the pipe out of his father's mouth, and was proceeding to
operate on his half-bald head with the scalping-knife, when Cora, who
entered the room at the moment, sprang forward and wrenched the weapon
from his grasp.

"We'll give them dinner after the shooting is over, shan't we, father?"
asked Cora.

"Of course, my dear, of course," replied the hospitable old gentleman,
giving the pride of his heart a sounding kiss as he put him down. "Set
your mother to work on a pie, and get Miss Trim to help you with a lot
of those cakes you make so famously."

As he spoke there was a sudden clatt