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Narcisse’s Friend.

Narcisse Lafontaine and Charlie Saunders became acquainted on their way to the lumbering camp, which was situated some fifteen miles back of St. John’s.  Charlie had only recently arrived from England, and knew practically nothing about lumbering, while Narcisse had been born in Canada, and felt as much at home in the woods as Charlie would have done in London.  Charlie took a liking to Narcisse the moment he saw him, and Narcisse was not slow in responding to the friendly advances of the young Englishman.

In appearance they were strikingly different.  Narcisse was a typical French-Canadian lumberman; he was about five feet eleven inches in height, dark-skinned, dark-eyed, broad-shouldered, powerful and good-natured.  Not even the most imaginative, had they seen him in the woods dressed in nondescript Canadian home-spun and swinging an axe, would have associated him with anything but what was commonplace and uninteresting; yet the great powerful, rough-looking fellow had a disposition that was as sympathetic as a woman’s.  The weather never affected him.  With Charlie it was different.  He was not accustomed to Canadian winters, and the rough unvarying food that was daily dealt out in the camp.  He got to dread the sight of pork, which was the staple article of diet the week round.  His health at times was so poor that he could not do heavy work, and it was then that the generous disposition of the young French-Canadian showed itself.  Narcisse was a great favorite with the foreman, and by a series of adroit schemes always managed to get Charlie put at easy work, although at times his scheming resulted in his having to do far more than his own share of the sawing and chopping.

Charlie was below the average stature, yet he was broad-shouldered and looked strong.  He had blue eyes, fair curly hair, a ruddy skin, and a laugh that was most pleasant to hear.  If they differed outwardly, they were remarkably alike in disposition.  Like Narcisse, Charlie was light-hearted and sympathetic.  All through the long winter they were inseparable.

The warm, inquisitive sun had so discomfited the snow that for five months had determinedly hid the earth, that it had begun to lose its attractive whiteness and to assume a jaundiced hue, and, finally succumbing to its ancient foe, was gradually retreating into the earth—­the vanishing of the snow meant the breaking up of the camp, for without it the logs could not be hauled to the river.

It was a beautiful day at the latter end of March when Narcisse and Charlie, with their winter’s earnings in their pockets, left camp and happily trudged off to the railway station, four miles away.  They had agreed to spend a month at St. John’s, where Narcisse lived, before going out to the North-West for the summer.  Charlie had suggested that they should go out west at once, but Narcisse somehow never took kindly to the proposition, and had offered several excuses for not hurrying away that seemed to Charlie to be a little hazy and certainly not very weighty.  One reason Narcisse dwelt upon for not going was the good fishing there was at St. John’s.  Prior to this suggestion Narcisse had never mentioned fishing; consequently the sudden outbreak of this new passion in his friend provided Charlie, on more than one occasion, with ample food for reflection.