Conceited Joe swallowed it whole. "I'm satisfied," he cried. "By George, I'd like to bind it with a kiss!"
"Look out, you turn us over," said Bela coolly. "The water moch cold."
Joe was quite carried away. "You beauty!" he cried. "Your skin is like cream. Your hair is like black velvet. You sit there as proud as a leading lady. I can't wait for you!"
"I ain't promise not'ing yet," said Bela warningly.
Johnny Gagnon's place was at the strategic point on Musquasepi where the forest ended and the meadows began. In the winter-time the freighters left the ice here, and headed straight across the bottom lands for the lake.
Gagnon kept a stopping-house for the freighters. It was the last house on the route to the head of the lake seventy-five miles away, excepting the shack at Nine-Mile Point, which had never been occupied until Big Jack and his party camped there.
Besides being a strategic point, it was one of those natural sites for a homestead that men pick out when there is a whole land to choose from. The bank rolled up gradually from the water's edge, and Gagnon's whole establishment was revealed from the river—dwelling, bunk-house, stable—all built of logs and crouching low on the ground as if for warmth.
The buildings had been there so long they had become a part of the landscape. The log walls were weathered to a silvery grey, and the vigorously sprouting sod roofs repeated the note of the surrounding grass.
On this particular afternoon there was something afoot at Johnny Gagnon's. The different members of the large family were running about like ants in a disturbed hill. A cloud of dust was issuing from the house door, propelled by a resolute broom.