broke—kicks like a windmill, sir, and’s got an ’ead like a steam-engine; ’e couldn’t ’old ’im in no’ow, sir. I ’ad ’im down to the smith t’other day, sir, an’ says ’e to me, says ’e, ‘That’s a screamer, that is.’ ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘that his a fact.’ ‘Well,’ says ’e—”

“Hang the smith!” cried the senior clerk, losing all patience; “can’t you answer me without so much talk? Is the horse too wild to ride?”

“Yes, sir, ’e is,” said the groom, with a look of slightly offended dignity, and drawing himself up—if we may use such an expression to one who was always drawn up to such an extent that he seemed to be just balanced on his heels, and required only a gentle push to lay him flat on his back.

“Oh, I have it!” cried Peter Mactavish, who had been standing during the conversation with his back to the fire, and a short pipe in his mouth: “John Fowler, the miller, has just purchased a new pony. I’m told it’s an old buffalo-runner, and I’m certain he would lend it to Charley at once.”

“The very thing,” said the senior clerk.—“Run, Tom; give the miller my compliments, and beg the loan of his horse for Charley Kennedy.—I think he knows you, Charley?”

The dinner-bell rang as the groom departed, and the clerks prepared for their mid-day meal.

The senior clerk’s order to “run” was a mere form of speech, intended to indicate that haste was desirable. No man imagined for a moment that Tom Whyte could by any possibility run. He hadn’t run since he was dismissed from the army, twenty years before, for incurable drunkenness; and most of Tom’s friends entertained the belief that if he ever attempted to run he would crack all over, and go to pieces like a disentombed Egyptian mummy. Tom therefore walked off to the row of buildings inhabited by the men, where he sat down on a bench in front of his bed, and proceeded leisurely to fill his pipe.

The room in which he sat was a fair specimen of the dwellings devoted to the employés of the Hudson’s Bay Company throughout the country. It was large, and low in the roof, built entirely of wood, which was unpainted; a matter, however, of no consequence, as, from long exposure to dust and tobacco-smoke, the floor, walls, and ceiling had become one deep, uniform brown. The men’s berths were constructed after the fashion of berths on board ship, being wooden boxes ranged in tiers round the room. Several tables and benches were strewn miscellaneously about the floor, in the centre of which stood a large double iron stove, with the word “Carron” stamped on it. This served at once for cooking, and warming the place. Numerous guns, axes, and canoe-paddles hung round the walls or were piled in corners, and the rafters sustained a miscellaneous mass of materials, the more conspicuous among which were snow-shoes, dog-sledges, axe handles, and nets.

Having filled and lighted his pipe, Tom Whyte thrust his hands into his deerskin mittens, and sauntered off to perform his errand.