A LABRADOR SPRING 
and appreciated him. Now one day there 
passed along this road a stranger on the march 
for the Hudson’s Bay Post of Mingan, an elderly 
man of timid disposition, and ignorant of the 
customs of the Magpie ox, and indeed not 
familiar with any horned cattle. 
As he approached the bridge that crosses 
the river near the cascade, he perceived the ox 
grazing by the roadside, and quickened his 
pace, for he did not relish such close proximity 
to a great beast with long horns, and these 
with such sharp points. Our friend the ox 
stops grazing and steps out rather quickly 
in order to say bon jour, so to speak, to the 
traveller. He, poor man, starts to run to es- 
cape what he believes to be an animal with 
vicious intentions, and to his terror the beast 
runs after him. Away they go, faster and 
faster, down the hill towards the bridge. Just 
before reaching this point, the road turns 
sharply to the left at the river’s brink. The 
man, terrified as he is, has enough wits left to 
take the turn successfully, and gains the bridge, 
but the ox in the ardour of his desire for social 
intercourse, and the slowness of his mind and 
of his huge bulk, is unable to turn quickly 
56 
