tting. However, to please you,
we'll call the operation joinery."

We had further trouble with this individual, who continually lamented he
had ever come to a country wherein there was no beer, and derided his
Ontario comrade for doing too much. The longer a job lasted the better for
those employed on it and the rest of the profession, he said: to which, as
we heard later, the Ontario man replied: "If the job lasts too long in
this country they pretty well fire you out of it."

At last, returning one morning wet with dew from a damp bed on a bluff,
where we had slept after toiling late the night before, we decided to
dispense with his services.

"Good heavens, man! if you get on at that rate it will take you two years
to finish," I said, when I found him tranquilly notching the ends of some
beams with mallet and chisel. "How long do you spend over one? And didn't
I tell you to use the axe?"

"Half a day to make a good job! There's no man in Canada can teach me what
tools to use," he said; and, being stiff all over, I turned to Harry.

"There's a fair edge on that axe. You might show him," I suggested.

Harry, who was in a hurry, flung off his jacket, badly tearing it; and for
a while the heavy blade made flashes in the sunlight, while the white
chips leaped up in showers, until, flinging down the axe, he pulled out
his watch.

"Ten minutes exactly--you can dress it another five," he said. "Now are
you willing to do it in that way? No? I didn't suppose you would be. Well,
we won't detain you. Give him his fare to Winnipeg and some breakfast,
Ralph--it will pay you."

I found Ormond's horses useful; for between timber-cutting, marking down
growing hay, rides to purchase cattle, and visits to the Manor, we often
covered fifty miles a day, with hard work besides; while, when we brought
out Ontario bushmen, Fairmead and the creamery lumber piles increased
rapidly in size, and our bank balance diminished as rapidly. Once, too,
when I came home so weary that I could scarcely get out of the saddle, I
found a black-edged letter awaiting me, and dropped heavily into a chair
after opening it.

"I hope there's no bad news," said Aline; "it has an American stamp. Who
can it be?"

"Cousin Alice! You might read it--the sun and the grass dust have almost
blinded me."

Martin Lorimer had written the letter from a little town in Southern
California, and Aline read: "I am in sore distress, Ralph. Your poor
cousin died here y