238 Deer-Hunting on the Ait Sable. 



and her refining influence has been felt in a very marked degree in 

 that wild region. She can shoot, though. Indeed, she handles a 

 rifle with the greatest coolness and skill, — thinks nothing of knock- 

 ing over a deer, and confesses to aspirations in the direction of bear. 

 Mr. Thompson's welcome in the course of an hour took a practical 

 form, when we all sat down to a magnificent roast of venison, broiled 

 chickens, and the most delicious of vegetables ; for it seems that when 

 one does get a bit of Michigan land which will consent to be culti- 

 vated, it turns out to be remarkably good land indeed. There were 

 great glass pitchers of excellent milk upon the table, similar pitchers 

 of real cream, and everything was neatly served. The table-cloth 

 was fine and of snowy whiteness, the napkins (this in the heart of a 

 Michigan wilderness ! ) ditto, and everything just as it should be, and 

 just as one would least have expected to find it. 



Thompson's hands came in the evening, — Canadians, for the 

 most part, and talking an inexplicable jargon called French. Reen- 

 forced by a few lumbermen and trappers, they filled the big, dimly 

 lighted room which would ordinarily be called the bar-room, but 

 which, having no bar, owing to Mrs. Thompson's way of inculcating 

 temperance principles, cannot so be called. They were noisy, well- 

 behaved, and good-humored, and they crowded around the stove, 

 and bedewed it pleasantly and copiously with infusion of Virginia 

 plug. There was a great deal of talk about lumber ; how many feet 

 such-and-such an one expected to " get out" ; where such-and-such 

 camps were about to be located ; the prospect of sufficient snow to 

 move the heavy lumber-sleighs, and a variety of topics that had 

 more or less sawdust in their composition. They spoke with loud, 

 individual self-assertion, and there was a curious touch of defiance in 

 every sentence that involved a direct proposition. This quality of 

 their speech, coupled with a degree of profanity which was simply 

 startling in its originality, its redundancy, and its obscurity of pur- 

 pose, made a stranger feel as if a fight might occur at any moment. 

 But there is no danger of anything of the kind. They live in this 

 atmosphere of exploitation and brag, with entire amicability and 

 good nature, and only fight when the camps break up and the men 

 are paid off. Then they congregate at the lake settlements and 

 elsewhere, and get frightfully drunk for weeks, and shoot and stab 

 with a liberality and self-abnegation that suggest that they ought 



