recognized the tripper to be Kipling, the famous snowshoe runner.
Immediately all save the Factor rushed forward to meet the little
half-breed who was in charge of the storm-bound packet, and to welcome
him with a fusilade of gunshots.

Everyone was happy now, for last year's news of the "_Grand Pays_"--the
habitant's significant term for the outer world--had at last arrived.
The monotonous routine of the Post was forgotten. To-day the long,
dreary silence of the winter would be again broken in upon by hearty
feasting, merry music, and joyous dancing in honour of the arrival of
the half-yearly mail.

All crowded round the voyageur, who, though scarcely more than five
feet in height, was famed as a snowshoe runner throughout the
wilderness stretching from the Canadian Pacific Railroad to the Arctic
Ocean. While they were eagerly plying him with questions, the crack of
a dog-whip was heard. Soon the faint tinkling of bells came through
the storm. In a moment all the dogs of the settlement were in an
uproar, for the packet had arrived.

With a final rush the gaunt, travel-worn dogs galloped through the
driving snow, and, eager for the shelter of the trading room, bolted
pell-mell through the gathering at the doorway, upsetting several
spectators before the driver could halt the runaways by falling
headlong upon the foregoer's back and flattening him to the floor.

All was excitement. Every dog at the post dashed in with bristling
hair and clamping jaws to overawe the strangers. Amid the hubbub of
shouting men, women, and children, the cracking of whips, and the
yelping of dogs, the packet was removed from the overturned sled and