10 IN A FRONTIER SETTLEMENT 



to be recommended. He had been born in the 

 backwoods, of a race who fight hard and die hard 

 on the outer edges of the world, and he had 

 learned his craft, from boyhood, in a stern school. 

 No better lumbermen stepped the earth than 

 those from his home on the Gauteneau River, 

 none more expert with the axe nor smarter on 

 the logs ; and proud was their boast among the 

 French-Canadian settlements on the Ottawa. 1 



Yes, Joe knew his work, as the best of them 

 know it. He was among the chosen of the old 

 hands, and, though on the wrong side of forty 

 and not so active as of old, he could still compete 

 with many a younger man. . . . 



Such, then, was my Riverman — this man 

 whom I had picked up by chance at " The End of 

 the Line," without introduction or recommenda- 

 tion, to be my sole companion on an unknown 

 trail for five months. 



I knew nothing of the man except that I knew 

 his trade — which was a strong word in his favour 

 — and it was long months after that I really knew 

 him as I write of him. As he himself said : 

 " You don't know me, I don't know you ; and 

 that's a risk on a big undertaking." But he 

 took the risk, as he had always done, — the risk 

 of mistake by a stranger at the bow paddle of 

 the canoe on a dangerous rapid ; the risk of 

 " falling out " a hundred miles, or a thousand, 

 from anywhere. . . . 



As for me — well, I was taking ho greater risk 

 than he was. 



1 Ottawa River, of which the Gauteneau is a tributary. 



