his
right a spring burst from the cliff and gushed through its little pool
down the beach. It was cold and delicious.

In the east side of the Kitchen was a natural tiny fireplace a couple
of feet high, screened by cedar foliage from the lake wind. Here Owen
cooked his meals, and the smoke was generally carried out from his
flueless hearth. The straits were then full of fish, and he had not far
to throw his lines to reach deep water.

Dependent on the patronage of Mackinac village, the Irishman had chosen
the very shop which would draw notice upon himself. His customers
tramped out to him along a rough beach under the heights, which helped
to wear away the foot-gear Owen mended. They stood grinning amiably at
his snug quarters. It was told as far as Drummond Island and the Sault
that a cobbler lived in the Devil's Kitchen on Mackinac.

He was a happy fellow, his clean Irish skin growing rosier in air pure
as the air of mid-ocean. The lake spread in variegated copper lights
almost at his feet. He did not like Mackinac village in summer, when the
engages were all back, and Indians camped tribes strong on the beach, to
receive their money from the government. French and savages shouldered
one another, the multitude of them making a great hubbub and a gay show
of clothes like a fair. Every voyageur was sparring with every other
voyageur. A challenge by the poke of a fist, and lo! a ring is formed
and two are fighting. The whipped one gets up, shakes hands with
his conqueror, and off they go to drink together. Owen despised such
fighting. His way was to take a club and break heads, and see some
blood run on the ground. It was better for him to dwell alone than to be
stirred up and left unsatisfied.

It was late in the afternoon, and the fresh smell of the water cheered
him as he sat stitching on a pair of deer-hide shoes for one Leon
Baudette, an engage, who was homesick for Montreal. The lowering sun
smote an hour-glass of light across the strait which separated him from
St. Ignace on the north shore, the old Jesuit station. Mother-of-pearl
clouds hung over the southern mainland, and the wash of the lake, which
was as pleasant as silence itself, diverted his mind from a distant
thump of Indian drums. He knew how lazy, naked warriors lay in their
lodges, bumping a mallet on stretched deer-hide and droning barbarous
monotones while they kicked their heels in air. If he despised anything
more than the way the French divert