e of the bench at his elbow. "Here, Grant, opposite Gillespie!
Aye! an' is that you, Father Holland?" he cried to the stout, jovial
priest, with shining brow and cheeks wrinkling in laughter, who followed
Grant. "There's a place o' honor for men like you, Sir. Here!" and he
gave the priest a chair beside himself.

The _Bourgeois_ seated, there was a scramble for the benches. Then the
whole company with great zest and much noisy talk fell upon the viands
with a will.

"Why, Cameron," began a northern winterer a few places below me, "it's
taken me three months fast travelling to come from McKenzie River to
Fort William. By Jove! Sir, 'twas cold enough to freeze your words solid
as you spoke them, when we left Great Slave Lake. I'll bet if you men
were up there now, you'd hear my voice thawing out and yelling get-epp
to my huskies, and my huskies yelping back! Used a dog train, whole of
March. Tied myself up in bag of buffalo robes at night and made the
huskies lie across it to keep me from freezing. Got so hot, every pore
in my body was a spouting fountain, and in the morning that moisture
would freeze my buckskin stiff. Couldn't stand that; so I tried sleeping
with my head out of the bag and froze my nose six nights out of seven."

The unfortunate nose corroborated his evidence.

"Ice was sloppy on the Saskatchewan, and I had to use pack-horses and
take the trail. I was trusting to get provisions at Souris. You can
imagine, then, how we felt towards the Hudson's Bays when we found
they'd plundered our fort. We were without a bite for two days. Why, we
took half a dozen Hudson's Bays in our quarters up north last winter,
and saved them from starvation; and here we were, starving, that they
might plunder and rob. I'm with you, Sir! I'm with you to the hilt
against the thieves! There's a time for peace and there's a time for
war, and I say this is a very good time for war!"

"Here's confusion to the old H. B. C's! Confusion, short life, no
prosperity, and death to the Hudson's Bay!" yelled the young whiskered
Nor'-Wester, springing to his feet on the bench and waving a
drinking-cup round his head. Some of the youthful clerks were disposed
to take their cue from this fire-eater and began strumming the table and
applauding; but the _Bourgeois_ frowned on forward conduct.

"Check him, Grant!" growled Cameron in disapproval.

"Sit down, bumptious babe!" said the priest, tugging the lad's coat.

"Here, you young show-off