"THAT MAN PARTRIDGE!" 63 



trudged by, pack on back, silent and grim. Swearing 

 at his horses, wheels squealing for axle-grease, tin pans 

 rattling and flashing in the hot morning sun, a settler 

 with a family stopped one day to ask questions of the 

 two young men. He was on his way somewhere no 

 place in particular. 



" I tell ye, boys, this country ain't no place f er a 

 white man," he volunteered. "When y'ain't freezin' 

 ye're burnin' up, an' that's what happens in hell !" He 

 spat a stream of tobacco juice over the wagon wheel 

 and clawed his beard, his brown face twisted quizzic- 

 ally. "God A'mighty ain't nowheres near here! He 

 didn't come this fur West stopped down to Kat Port- 

 age !* Well, anyways, good luck to ye both ; but ef ye 

 don't git it, young fellers, don't ye go blamin* me, by 

 Jupiter !" He cracked his whip. " Come up out o* 

 that, ye God-forsaken old skates!" And, mud-caked 

 wheels screeching, tin pans banging and glaring, he 

 jolted back to the trail that led away in distance to 

 No Place In Particular. 



But along with some others who confessed to being 

 poor walkers, the Partridge boys stuck right where 

 they were. They set about the building of a more per- 

 manent and comfortable shack a sod house this time. 

 It took more than seven thousand sods, one foot by 

 three, three inches thick; but when it was finished it 

 was a precocious raindrop or a mendacious wind that 

 could find its way in. 



About thirteen miles distant was a little mud school- 

 house, and one day E. A. Partridge was asked to go over 

 and teach in it. It was known that back East, besides 

 working on his father's farm, he had taught school for 

 awhile. Learning was a truant for the younger gener- 



* The new name of Rat Portage is Kenora (Ontario). 



