turn out! The work's waiting!" broke into his dreams and recalled him to
life's realities. The morning was gray and chilly, the men looked
sleepy and out of humour, and Johnston himself had it a stern distant
manner, or seemed to have, as after a wash at the river bank Frank
approached him and reported himself for duty.

"Will you please to tell me what is to be my work, Mr. Johnston?" said
he, in quite a timid tone; for somehow or other there seemed to be a
change in the atmosphere.

The foreman's face relaxed a little as he turned to answer him.

"You want to be set to work, eh? Well, that won't take long." And looking
around among the moving men until he found the one he wanted, he raised
his voice and called,--

"Hi, there, Baptiste! Come here a moment."

In response to the summons a short, stout, smooth-faced, and decidedly
good-natured looking Frenchman, who had been busy at one of the fires,
came over to the foreman.

"See here, Baptiste; this lad's to be your chore-boy this winter, and I
don't want you to be too hard on him--_savez?_ Let him have plenty of
work, but not more than his share."

Baptiste examined Frank's sturdy figure with much the same smile of
approval that he might bestow upon a fine capon that he was preparing for
the pot, and murmured out something like,--