o, and
oceans of tea!"

The six visitors accepted the invitation, and were soon made acquainted
with all the gossip of the community.

"Does it always smoke?" whispered Little Bill to his brother.

The "it" referred to was Baby La Certe, which had, as usual, possessed
itself of its father's pipe when the mother was not watching.

"I'm not sure, Little Bill, but I think that it does its best."

It was observed, especially by Fred Jenkins, that the tea-drinking which
went on at this place was something marvellous.

"There's that squaw sittin' there," he said, "she's bin an' swigged
three pannikins o' tea while I've bin looking at her--an' it's as black
as ink. What's that brown stuff they put into it, does any one know?"

"That? Why, it is maple sugar," answered Archie, "an' capital stuff it
is to eat too."

"Ah, I know that, for I've ate it in lump, but it can't be so good in
tea, I fancy, as or'nary brown or white sugar; but it's better than fat,
anyhow."

"Fat!" exclaimed Little Bill, "surely you never heard of any one taking
fat in tea, did you?"

"Ay, that I did. Men that move about the world see strange things. Far
stranger things than people invent out o' their own brains. Why, there
was one tribe that I saw in the East who putt fat in the tea, an'
another putt salt, and after they'd swallowed this queer kind of
tea-soup, they divided the leaves among themselves an' chawed 'em up
like baccy."

The evident delight with which these half-breeds and more than
half-Indians swallowed cup after cup of the blackest and bitterest tea,
proved beyond question their appreciation of the article, and afforded
presumptive evidence at least that tea is not in their case as poisonous
as we are taught to believe.

But it was not, as Jenkins remarked, all fair weather, fun, and tea at
the fishery. After the six visitors had been there for a week, shooting
and assisting in the canoes, and at the nets, there came a night when
the forces of Nature declared war against the half-breeds and those
settlers who had cast in their lot with them at that time.

Jenkins, Okematan, and Archie had been out with their guns that day--the
last having been promoted to the use of the dangerous weapon--and in
their wanderings had about nightfall come upon a family of half-breeds
named Dobelle, a good-natured set, who lived, like La Certe, on the
_laissez faire_ principle; who dwelt in a little log-hut of their own
construction with