The Connecticut labor press., 1919-12-27
By VICTOR ROUSSEAU
Illustrations by IrrVi11 Myers

''s' ''s' ''' 1 fore. Now you take a Dutchman or a DagO-their ways ain't our ways, but they're more or less human. These people ain't. They paint their houses | yellow and green, when they paint 'em at all. I never saw a yellow house with a green porch in my life till l | come up here"
 l "JuSt a difference of taste, MT. Con- nell"
 | Maybe" saio Lafe, splitting. May l be it's all right not to have sense to plaster their houses, so as to freeze to death in winter time. Maybe it's all ! right to run to Father Lucy when there's forest fire, instead of getting to work and putting it out. Maybe he can pray it out for them. got nothing against the place, except that my wife Clarice and the kids are in Shoebury- port, and I'd rather rot here alone than bring 'em up. But what's the usei I'm here and I got to stay here." he ended, shrugging his shoulders. Lafe was bad cross-questioner, and the task put upon him by Brousseau was not only uncongenial but impos- sible for a man of his temperament However, he made a valiant attempt to draw Hilary out. You're thinking of spending some time here, MT. As kew?" he asked.
 Eve come to take charge. I'm going to stay." said Hilary. 'Lafe looked at him curiously. What sort of man could this. be who chose of his vOlition to reside in St. Boni- face?
 Il guess you'll change your mind when you've seen it little longer" he said incredulously.
 "On the contrary, MT. Cornell, mean to take hold, and I mean to make 1t pay. It hasn't paid very we'll, I un- derstand?"
 Lafe f1oundered. i've heard 1t don't pay as much as it ought"
 T understand that most of the tim Der is below the size at which cutting is allowed?"
 Lafe stared at him. "Why, them rules are for government land!" he answered. ''You can cut any size on freehold. The timber ain't so bad leastways, some of it ain't."
 
 point Lamartine had clearly and defl- nitely lied to him.
 'Too much fir on the property?" he asked.
 "Why, there is some fir," conceded Lafe. "But there's some good spruce along the Rocky river" he added, again oblivious of his instructions.
 II saw a good pile in the river''
 "Why. that ain't our cutting-not much of it," said Lafe. Most of that comes from the Ste. Marie limits''
 "Where is Ste Marie?"
 ''Ste. Marie's two miles along the coast, beyond our settlement" said Lafe. Most of our hands come from there. It's a tough place, MT. Askew. I seen some tough towns in the West but this has got 'em all beat, with the smuggling of brandy, and the drinking and the fights every Saturday night there was a man knifed there last ty miles, and nobody except Father Lucy, and he can't hold 'em"
 "What want to know" said Hilary, "is, what this company is that you speak about, and how they come to use the Rocky river for their logs"
 Lafe hesitated, but only for a mo- ment. Then he mentally cast Brous- seau to the winds; for, after all, if Hilary meant to know, nobody could prevent it, Brousseau's instructions notwithstanding.
 "It's this way, MT. Askew," he said. "Mr. Morris and Mr. Brousseau have a company of their own. Their limits touch ours on the west, across the river, and run ten miles or so back into the bush, right alongside ours. They got the right to float their logs down the river"
 And use the mill?"
 "Mr. Morris leases the use of our mill by the year to the company"
 Hilary was staggered for the mo- ment Morris, as his uncle's manager, leasing the mill to Morris, partner in Brousseau's company, seemed a queer role.
 "How do they tell our lumber from theirs?" asked Hilary presently.
 "Oh, that ain't hard" said Lafe, "You see, the jobbers, who sublease the tracts, know how much their men have cut And it's sealed in the woods before they shoot it down stream. I guess there ain't no diff Culty there, MT. Askew. And you see, Mir. Morris representing both concerns, he naturally does his best by both of i 'em."