even an odd cross-cut saw had been skillfully impressed into the scheme of
ornamentation. But there was nothing pinchbeck or tawdry about them.
Whirled high by sinewy hands, or clenched in hard brown fingers while a
steady eye stared down the barrel, that a bridge might span a ravine where
no bridge had been, or venison help to cut down the grocery bill and leave
the more for the breaking of virgin soil, that steel had played its part
in the opening up of a wide country. Yet, the suggestion of strict utility
even enhanced its effectiveness, and I remembered with a smile the
trophies of weapons stamped out by the gross in Birmingham which I had
seen adorning our suburban villas at home.

The majority of the guests were English--one could see that at a glance,
and the mother country had small reason to be ashamed of her outland sons.
The clear skin showed through the snow-blink's tan, and the eyes were
bright with a steadfastness that comes from gazing into wide distance.
Sun, wind, and snow, the dust of parched earth and the stinging smoke of
the drifts, had played their part in hardening them, but still, a little
deeper in color, a little stronger in limb, they were the same men one
finds dwelling in many an English home. Standing beside a great open
hearth, on which to aid the stove a huge pile of birch logs crackled
joyously, the representative of an alien race drew a cunning bow across
the strings of a dingy violin. He sprang from Gallic stock, a descendant
of the old _coureurs_ who for two centuries wandered in search of furs
across the wilderness, even as far as the northern barrens, before the
Briton came to farm. It was a waltz he played--at least, that was the
time; but the music seemed filled with the sighing of limitless pines, and
the air was probably known in France three hundred years ago. Still,
weather-beaten men, and fair women who were considerably less numerous,
swept light-heartedly round to it, and when, declining refreshment then,
we found a corner, Harry and I sat staring with all our eyes at the scene
before us.

After the monotonous labor of the past two years the swish of light
dresses and the rhythmic patter of feet, with the merry faces and joyous
laughter, moved me strangely. All this seemed to belong to a different
world from the one in which we had been living, and I wondered whether any
of those dainty daughters of Carrington would deign to dance with me. They
might have been transplanted