270 NEWFOUNDLAND 



"You should a got jailed in Harbour Breton,"^ remarked 

 Steve, with a sly twinkle in his eye. "That's the place to 

 enjoy yourself. Nicholas Jeddore he got put in prison there 

 — two falls ago — for setting de woods afire. He said he's 

 never had so many Christmas dinners afore, an' all the 

 people were wonderful kind. All day he could go about 

 wherever he liked, and used to fish and make little canoes 

 for de children. An' at night all he had to do was to go 

 and report himself, and sleep in the most comfortable bed 

 he'd ever seen. He was quite sorry to go home, and said 

 next time things were rough he's goin' to ask to be took 

 back." 



Johnny Benoit was of quite a different type, a visionary 

 boy of eighteen, with great, big, dreamy black eyes. He 

 had the sort of expression that sees " God in clouds, and 

 hears Him in the wind." He was very good-looking, but 

 did not like work, partly because one of his arms was half 

 paralysed through rolling logs when he was too young, and 

 partly because he had fallen over a precipice two years 

 previously and been half-killed. But he was a nice, amiable 

 creature, and with his dislike for labour, quaint thoughts, 

 and sweet far-away expression, would have made a successful 

 minor poet at home. 



The first few miles of the river were easy, so I worked 

 in the big canoe, and we made good progress with our poles. 

 Towards evening, however, the stream became shallow and 

 rocky, and we had a taste of what the Long Harbor River 

 was like — endless falls, boiling runs, and sudden "drops" where 

 lifts were necessary. At sunset we reached a very bad place 

 above a birchy island, where a portage of everything for half 

 a mile landed us on a high shelf of rocks, where we made 



' The Government prison on the south coast. 



