"But, mother, the best fun of the whole thing is shooting the slides. I just wish there was a slide near Calumet, so that I could take you down and let you see how splendid it is. Why, it's just like—let me see—I've got it! It's just like tobogganing on water. You jump on board the crib at the mouth of the slide, you know, and it moves along very slowly at first, until it gets to the edge of the first slant; then it takes a sudden start, and away it goes shooting down like greased lightning, making the water fly up all around you, just like the snow does when you're tobogganing. Oh, but if it isn't grand! The timbers of the crib rub against the bottom of the slide, and groan and creak as if it hurt them. And then, besides coming in over the bow, the water spurts up between the timbers, so that you have to look spry or you're bound to get soaking wet. I got drenched nearly every time; but that didn't matter, for the sun soon made me dry again, and it was too good fun to mind a little wetting."
Frank felt quite sorry when the last of the slides was passed, and wished there were twice as many on the route of the raft. But presently he had something else to occupy his thoughts, for each day brought him nearer to Calumet, and soon his journeyings by land and water would be ended, and he would be at home again to make his mother's heart glad.
It was the perfection of a spring day when the raft, moving in its leisurely fashion—for was not the whole summer before it?—reached Calumet, and Mrs. Kingston, sitting alone in her cottage, and wondering when her boy would make his appearance, was surprised by an unceremonious opening of the front door, a quick step in the hall, and a sudden enfolding by two stout arms, while a voice that she had not heard for months shouted in joyous accents,—
"Here I am, mother darling, safe and sound, right side up with care, and oh, so glad to be at home again!"
Mrs. Kingston returned the fond embrace with interest, and then held Frank off at arms-length to see how much he had changed during his six months' absence. She found him both taller and stouter, and with his face well browned by the exposure to the bright spring sunshine.
"You went away a boy, and you've come back almost a man, Frank," she said, her eyes brimming with tears of joy. "But you're my own boy the same as ever; aren't you, darling?"
It was many a day before Frank reached the end of his story of life at the lumber camp, for Mrs. Kingston never wearied of hearing all about it. When she learned of his different escapes from danger, the inclination of her heart was to beseech him to be content with one winter in the woods, and to take up some other occupation. But she wisely said nothing, for there could be no doubt as to the direction in which Frank's heart inclined, and she determined not to interfere.
When in the following autumn Frank went back to the forest, he was again under Johnston's command, but not as chore-boy. He was appointed clerk and checker, with liberty to do as much chopping or other work as he pleased. Whatever his duty was he did it with all his might, doing it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, so that he found increasing favour in his employer's eyes, rising steadily higher and higher until, while still a young man, he was admitted into partnership, and had the sweet satisfaction of realizing the day dreams of that first trip down the Ottawa on a timber raft.
Yet he never forgot what he had learned when chore-boy of Camp Kippewa, and out of that experience grew a practical philanthropic interest in the well-being and advancement of his employees, that made him the most popular and respected "lumber-king" on the river.