hins in
the briers, an affair which did not add to the love of their family for
ours. There was no money in that country, and the store took our pelts
in exchange for what we needed from civilization. Once a month would
I load these pelts on the white mare, and make the journey by the path
down the creek. At times I met other settlers there, some of them not
long from Ireland, with the brogue still in their mouths. And again,
I saw the wagoner with his great canvas-covered wagon standing at the
door, ready to start for the town sixty miles away. 'Twas he brought the
news of this latest war.

One day I was surprised to see the wagoner riding up the path to our
cabin, crying out for my father, for he was a violent man. And a violent
scene followed. They remained for a long time within the house, and when
they came out the wagoner's face was red with rage. My father, too, was
angry, but no more talkative than usual.

"Ye say ye'll not help the Congress?" shouted the wagoner.

"I'll not," said my father.

"Ye'll live to rue this day, Alec Trimble," cried the man. "Ye may think
ye're too fine for the likes of us, but there's them in the settlement
that knows about ye."

With that he flung himself on his horse, and rode away. But the next
time I went to the Cross-Roads the woman drove me away with curses, and
called me an aristocrat. Wearily I tramped back the dozen miles up the
creek, beside the mare, carrying my pelts with me; stumbling on the
stones, and scratched by the dry briers. For it was autumn, the woods
all red and yellow against the green of the pines. I sat down beside the
old beaver dam to gather courage to tell my father. But he only smiled
bitterly when he heard it. Nor would he tell me what the word ARISTOCRAT
meant.

That winter we spent without bacon, and our salt gave out at Christmas.
It was at this season, if I remember rightly, that we had another
visitor. He arrived about nightfall one gray day, his horse jaded and
cut, and he was dressed all in wool, with a great coat wrapped about
him, and high boots. This made me stare at him. When my father drew back
the bolt of the door he, too, stared and fell back a step.

"Come in," said he.

"D'ye ken me, Alec?" said the man.

He was a tall, spare man like my father, a Scotchman, but his hair was
in a cue.

"Come in, Duncan," said my father, quietly. "Davy, run out for wood."

Loath as I was to go, I obeyed. As I came back dragging a log behind