and women were
haunched about the fire, above which simmered several pots with the
savory odor of cooking meat. I do not think a soul of the company as
much as turned a head on our approach. Though they saw us plainly, they
sat stolid and imperturbable, after the manner of their race, waiting
for us to announce ourselves. Some of the squaws and half-breed women
were heaping bark on the fire. Indians sat straight-backed round the
circle. White men, vagabond trappers from anywhere and everywhere, lay
in all variety of lazy attitudes on buffalo robes and caribou skins.

I had known, as every one familiar with Quebec's family histories must
know, that the sons of old seigneurs sometimes inherited the adventurous
spirit, which led their ancestors of three centuries ago to exchange the
gayeties of the French court for the wild life of the new world.
I was aware this spirit frequently transformed seigneurs
into bush-rangers and descendants of the royal blood into
_coureurs-des-bois_. But it is one thing to know a fact, another to see
that fact in living embodiment; and in this case, the living embodiment
was Louis Laplante, a school-fellow of Laval, whom, to my amazement, I
now saw, with a beard of some months' growth and clad in buckskin, lying
at full length on his back among that villainous band of nondescript
trappers. Something of the surprise I felt must have shown on my face,
for as Louis recognized me he uttered a shout of laughter.

"Hullo, Gillespie!" he called with the saucy nonchalance which made him
both a favorite and a torment at the seminary. "Are you among the
prophets?" and he sat up making room for me on his buffalo robe.

"I'll wager, Louis," said I, shaking his hand heartily and accepting the
proffered seat, "I'll wager it's prophets spelt with an 'f' brings you
here." For the young rake had been one of the most notorious borrowers
at the seminary.

"Good boy!" laughed he, giving my shoulder a clap. "I see your time was
not wasted with me. Now, what the devil," he asked as I surveyed the
motley throng of fat, coarse-faced squaws and hard-looking men who
surrounded him, "now, what the devil's brought you here?"

"What's the same, to yourself, Louis lad?" said I. He laughed the merry,
heedless laugh that had been the distraction of the class-room.

"Do you need to ask with such a galaxy of nut-brown maidens?" and Louis
looked with the assurance of privileged impudence straight across the
fire into the