The Connecticut labor press., 1919-12-27

 kew. Really"
 "Let me have the papers, please said Hilary, smiling. And you neeC have no fear that you will be held re- sponsible for my anticipating my in heritance. I imagine I have as much right there as Mr. Norris
 "Of course, if that is your decision there Is nothing more to say," an swered the other brusquely. He | pulled out a drawer and removed an envelope containing some documents You will find the statement here," he said. 'Mr. Morris has the books and the map of St. Boniface. I wish you pleasant journey, sir. You wish me | to continue to represent you?'
 For the present. yes. Good-day." When he was gone Monsieur Lamar | tine sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers for nearly a minute. Then he called up Brousseau. He's just gone," he said. And he starts for St. BOniface tomorrow morn ing, in spite of all my representa- tions."
 He smiled at the sputtering that came over the wire.
 It was we'll into the afternoon when Hilary reached St. Boniface on the small tri-weekly mail boat. For fifty or sixty miles below Quebec the coun- try, sparsely inhabited though it is, and primitive, contains settlements with shingled houses, hotels, tourists in season and it was not until the St. Lawrence widened into the Gulf that Hilary realized. almost with surprise, that the ship was sailing into a terri tory as primitive as 1t had been a score of years after Jacques Cartier landed. Something of the primeval nature of the land entered Hilarys heart and gripped it. He had never known what it was he wanted. But he knew now : it WAS to take hold of a virgin land | and tame it, to grapple with life, not among the men of cities, but some l where with the smell of the pines and of the brown earth in his nOStrilS. Pac- ing the deck of the little ship, he felt that his desires had come to light at the moment when their fulfillment had become possible.
 
 when he stood upon the porch of the tiny hotel at St. Boniface. Nobody else had got off the boat, and evident ly the landlord of the little hotel ex- pected nobody. After an intellectual attempt to enter into conversation with him, in which hardly a word was mu- tually intelligible, Hilary gave up the effort and started up the hill road which led, he surmised, toward the lumber mill.
 The whole settlement was gathered about the shores of the little bay. Be yOnd it were the mountains, on either side the forest-clad hills, broken, on the east. by an inlet and on the west by the deep cleft of the Rocky river, whose mouth, closed by a boom, was a cOngested mass of logs.
 Hilary crossed the bridge and ap- prOached the mill. Two or three men, lounging outside the store looked at him without any sign of interest. Everything was very still and peace full; there was hardly a sound to be heard except the distant hum of the mill machinery.
 Between the dam and the store, upon a terrain heaped with tin cans and miscellaneous debris, were piles of wood in four-foOt lengths, each con- priSing about two hundred cords. kneeling at the narrow end of one of these piles was a little man, whose clean-shaven upper lip, the Whiteness of which entrusted with a sun-black- ened face, indicated that a mustache had grown there recently. He was scaling, or measuring, the pile, and muttering as he added up his figures.
 Hilary surveyed the lumber. It was unrOssed, and most of it was black spruce; there was also some white spruce and little pine. The mass in the river, if it consisted of wood of the same quality, hardly substantiated Lamartine's statements.
 You seem to have some good spruce on the seigniory," said Hilary.
 The little man leaped to his feet, waving his arms. What you want here?" he demanded. Strangers are not permitted on the companys prop erty. If you want to buy at the store, you go by the road.'
 Hilary looked down coolly at the excited little man. I'm MT. Askew, and I've come to take charge of my property" he answered.
 The little man was bereft of vocal powers for quite some time.
 But NIT. Morris, he ain't here," he gaSped at length.
 well, he ought to be here. That's what I'm paying him for" said Hilary. "What's your name?"
 "Jean-Marie Baptiste."
 "Perhaps you didn't expect me, Mon- sieur Baptiste?"
 Holy Name, no! It was said that you had sold out to the company"
 "What company" demanded Hilary.
 "The company at Ste. Marie. Mon- sieur Brousseau's company"
 "See here, Baptiste," said Hilary, taking the other by the arm. Let us begin by understanding each other. 1 know nothing about any company ex- ccpt myself. I own this district, the land, the timber, the mill. Have you got that?"
 Jean-Marie gaped again, and then automatically disengaged himself.
 T guess you want to see Mr. Con- nell, the foreman" he said. Tt ain't