The girls giggled delightedly at this suggestion.
Each one of the white men thought: "Dance at my wedding, maybe!" and glanced covertly at Bela. Bela looked out of the window.
"What! dance with the bishop here?" said Jack, affecting to be scandalized.
"Sure!" cried Johnny. "Bishop Lajeunesse no long-chin religieux. Bishop say let yo'ng folks have a good time. Laugh and mak' fun wherever he go. He is a man!"
Early as they were they no sooner finished breakfast than they heard a shrill hail from down river. Every soul about the place excepting Sam dropped what he was about and scampered down to the water's edge.
Presently around the bend below appeared the tracking crew, slipping in the ooze, scrambling over fallen trunks, plunging through willows. Behind them trailed the long, thin line that must be kept taut, whatever the obstruction. Finally the York boat poked its nose lazily into view like a gigantic duck.
The other four of the crew stood upon the cargo with long poles to fend her off the shore, and the steersman was mounted on a little platform astern wielding an immense sweep. In the waist stood the passengers. As the celebrities were recognized a shout went up from the shore.
There was the bishop with red buttons, and the ordinary priests with black. There were the police in their gay, scarlet tunics; the Indian agent with his bag of money, and the doctor with his bag of tools. Finally there was the blue hat with ostrich feathers that was already famous in the country.
Before the summer was out, news of that hat travelled all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Any one of these passengers would have made a gala day for Johnny Gagnon's family. To have them all at once was almost more than they could take in.
The tracking crew was on the opposite bank. Coiling up their line and jumping aboard, all hands poled her across. The bishop, gathering his cassock around his waist, was the first to leap ashore.