epastick, who moved on with all confidence and paid not the
slightest attention to the flags.

Look! Away beyond the islands, in the distance, shining in the
sunlight, is the steeple of the mission church. Just a few more
windings in these tortuous channels, and then the two miles' dash for
home. Most of the Indians--for their skates were poor--have fallen in
the rear. The one white man whom Frank despises is perhaps a hundred
yards ahead, and not far behind him are his companions. With intense
interest Kepastick is watching them.

"Chist!" he cries again, and his dark eyes flashed with excitement; "the
trail is ours!"

It seems that there ran out from that place two channels that looked
very much alike. The correct one had been flagged several days before,
but the previous evening the clerk had skated over and had flagged the
wrong channel. Sharp eyes had been on him and had discovered his trick,
and these misplaced flags had been replaced at their proper positions,
while the others had been left as the villain had placed them. Thus
thrown off his guard, he blindly dashed into the wrong channel. The
rocky shores were high and abrupt, and so Kepastick and Frank shot by
the trap and into the correct channel, and were hundreds of yards out on
the now open lake, with their faces toward home, ere the plotters
discovered, to their dismay, how they had been completely foiled. As
rapidly as possible they turned, but the distance could not be made up,
and so to their chagrin they not only found that Frank and Kepastick had
tied first, but that six or seven Indians, some with home-made skates,
had wholly beaten them.

As the miserable trickster passed Frank on the shore some time after, in
the presence of the chief factor, Mr Ross, and several others, Frank
sternly looked at him and uttered the one word "Sand". None but the two
then knew what was meant, but the guilty rascal paled, and so trembled
that it seemed as though he would fall to the ground. Very soon was he
out of that company. Next day he asked to be transferred to another
post, which request was cheerfully granted. It was a long time before
Frank told of his contemptible conduct. When Mr Ross at length heard
of it he communicated at once with the head officers of the Hudson Bay
Company in reference to conduct so dishonourable, and the result was
that the poor fellow, who had not improved over such actions in other
places, was ignominiously expelled