It was hard on Vaillantcœur, of course, to see Leclère going ahead, getting rich, clearing off the mortgage on his farm, laying up money with the notaire Bergeron, who acted as banker for the parish—it was hard to look on at this, while he himself stood still, or even slipped back a little, got into debt, had to sell a bit of the land that his father left him. There must be some chicane about it.
But this was not the hardest morsel to swallow. The great thing that stuck in his crop was the idea that the little Prosper, whom he could have whipped so easily, and whom he had protected so loftily, when they were boys, now stood just as high as he did as a capable man—perhaps even higher. Why was it that when the Pearce Brothers, down at Chicoutimi, had a good "jobbe-de-chantier" up in the woods on la Belle Rivière, they made Leclère the boss, instead of Vaillantcœur? Why did the curé Villeneuve choose Prosper, and not Raoul, to steady the strain of the biggest pole when they were setting up the derrick for the building of the new church?
It was rough, rough! The more Raoul thought of it, the rougher it seemed. The fact that it was a man who had once been his protégé, and still insisted on being his best friend, did not make it any smoother. Would you have liked it any better on that account? I am not telling you how it ought to have been, I am telling you how it was. This isn't Vaillantcœur's account-book; it's his story. You must strike your balances as you go along.
"Why so many ifs in this fine speech?"—[Page 160].
And all the time, you understand, he felt sure in his heart that he was stronger and braver than Prosper. He was hungry to prove it. He only knew of one way. He grew more and more keen to try it. Two or three things happened to set an edge on his hunger.
The first was the affair at the shanty on Lac des Caps. The wood-choppers, like sailors, have a way of putting a new man through a few tricks to initiate him into the camp. Leclère was bossing the job, with a gang of ten men from St. Raymond under him. Vaillantcœur had just driven a team in over the snow with a load of provisions, and was lounging around the camp as if it belonged to him. It was Sunday afternoon, the regular time for fun, but no one dared to take hold of him. He looked too big. He expressed his opinion of the camp.
"No fun in this chantier, hé? I suppose that little Leclère he makes you others work, and say your prayers, and then, for the rest you can sleep. Hé! Well, I am going to prepare a little fun for you, my boys. Come, Prosper, get your hat, if you are able to climb a tree."
He snatched the hat from the table by the stove and ran out into the snow. In front of the shanty a good-sized spruce, tall, smooth, very straight, was still standing. He went up the trunk like a bear.
But there was a dead balsam that had fallen against the spruce and lodged on the lower branches. It was barely strong enough to bear the weight of a light man. Up this slanting ladder Prosper ran quickly in his moccasined feet, snatched the hat from Raoul's teeth as he swarmed up the trunk, and ran down again. As he neared the ground, the balsam, shaken from its lodgement, cracked and fell. Raoul was left up the tree, perched among the branches, out of breath. Luck had set the scene for the lumberman's favorite trick.