THE Boy sat at the door of his hut.

       Perhaps "hut" was too grand a term to apply, seeing it consisted of but one room: but then it represented his house — his castle — and he had built it himself. The Boy was prouder of that than almost anything in his life, even more than the day when he won the school match with a boundary hit against the Rivaltonians.

       The hut was a low, rectangular building, about ten feet by eight, built of logs, with one window and a door. The latter was apt to be troublesome occasionally, and had an inconvenient habit of refusing to latch if the weather was at all damp and the wood swelled.

       But that was a trifle. Inside the room was perfection — in its owner's eyes. It was lined throughout with cedar. Such lining is esteemed a luxury in England, and some people might sigh enviously at the thought of it, forgetting that no man's lot is perfect, and that a superfluity of one commodity generally means lack of another.

       In this case it meant furniture.

       A low camp bedstead covered with a brown blanket, a folding table under the window, and a deck-chair, completed the list of principal items. Other trifles were two rough shelves at right angles to each other, containing clothes and such impedimenta folded up with a suggestion of neatness, a few pegs on which hung whip, spurs and fishing-rod, and over the bed a smaller shelf with those lares and penates which a man seldom leaves behind when he has any belongings, a small travelling clock and photographs of his family.

       By the head of the bed a packing-case, turned up on end to serve as a table, contained candle, matches, and such like details which belong to smoking in bed.

       From the hut door the view was not extensive. About six yards away, another window, belonging to the butcher's room, shut out all sense of what lay beyond. The butcher, with his wife and family, had lately absconded, not forgetting to carry away as much portable cash as he could lay hands on. His partner in the next town was thereby rendered destitute.

       The Boy remembered this as he looked at the window. It had always been an eyesore to him. If that window had not been there, he might have had quite a good view from his door: but there it was, jutting out in the most aggressive fashion, oblivious of the lake and mountains which lay behind.

       When he built his room he never thought of this; only recent experience taught him that it is not wise to build even one room looking directly on to one's neighbour's windows. But then, no man becomes an architect all at once, and he had a great deal to learn yet.

       Work was slack that afternoon. Indeed, it had been for some time past. Nearly every one had left the place at the first sign of hard weather, and business at the store had perceptibly dwindled. The boat had stopped running on the lake, so mails were irregular, and came in a happy-go-lucky style, often missing weeks at a time. It was trying, but there was no help for it No one can combat nature and unfreeze lakes, or construct roads at a moment's notice.

       By-and-bye, when the town was built, and everything in working order, there would be a regular post, perhaps every day. At present there was only the town site clearing, recently marked out by the engineers, and then left for a more convenient season. It would be very fine indeed in the future, facing the lake, and standing due south. Visions of stately buildings and crowded streets rose in the Boy's mind the store "paying like fun," and being enlarged to colossal dimensions, himself one of the partners of the flourishing business. Then the airy castle vanished, and only the two small shut-up hotels remained as realities that any one had thought of a city at all.

       He got up and went into his room whistling. There was an odd sensation in his throat which made whistling a necessity. It wanted but a few days to Christmas, and that is apt to be a time for laying bare old memories. The Boy was not hardened yet. He had only just begun to realize that life is not all beer and skittles, and he was very young.

       He wondered what they were doing at home, and whether they were thinking of him. It would be very jolly there now. Every one went home for Christmas, and there was a great bustle of arrival in the hall, with much merriment and laughter and hanging up of holly and mistletoe. Perhaps there was skating, or a run across country with the hounds: and "the girls" would be decorating at the church. They all went together on Christmas morning, though he had sometimes shirked going at other times. But the old hymns were rather jolly, and it was nice for the whole family to go once a year, at least, together.

       The nearest church here was seventy miles off.

       The Boy had been meant for the army — he liked that better than anything else. All his education had tended towards the desired end. He was duly gazetted to the militia, and his first appearance in his new uniform was the occasion of much rejoicing in the family. His sisters pressed round him in an admiring circle; his father clapped him on the back, saying he should live to see him commanding the old corps yet, while his mother shed a few tears for fear of imminent war. The Boy felt already as if — at the head of his regiment — he were leading on his men to victory or death.

       Only, unfortunately, there are such things as competitive examinations to be passed, with a minimum of prizes and a vast majority of blanks.

       When the list came out, the Boy's name was somehow not found there, and because militia trainings and crammer's fees are apt to be expensive, there was no more money to be spent on such trifles, and the Boy had to migrate to the backwoods with the best grace he could command.

       And this was his first Christmas away from home.

       A shrill whistle interrupted his meditations.

       "Hullo! Williams; I say, are you there?"

       The Boy hulloaed back that he was.

       "Come and lend a hand, will you? I can't get this beastly thing any further."

       The new-comer sounded irritable, and the Boy went out to lend a hand. Between them they rolled up the huge log of wood, and then, somewhat out of breath, stood surveying their prize.

       "I could not leave him," said Burke, wiping his forehead; "he is such a beauty, and will make a splendid fire. Let us chop off a few of these superfluous corners."

       They fetched their hatchets, and for some minutes cut away in silence. Then the Boy asked:

       "Been round the town?"

       "Yes," answered Burke, pausing a moment. "I tell you what, Williams, they've finished the wagon road after a fashion, and I'm going to see if I cannot get to D—– to-morrow. Two sleighs are going, and we want some things. There's not a drop of oil left for the lamps, and precious few candles. We shall soon be in utter darkness."

       "You might see if there is any chance of getting letters out that way," said the Boy, hacking away at a particularly refractory knot.

       "What a chap you are for letters!" ejaculated Burke. "When you have been out here as long as I have, you'll get used to it."

       "Perhaps," responded the Boy briefly.

       Burke had been out ten years without going home; he was quite accustomed to the vagaries and uncertainties of backwoods life. Still, he was sorry for the Boy, because he liked him, and saw he was homesick. That evening, as they sat smoking, he told him yams of all his experiences, and of the fortunes other men had made. He also said he meant to bring home something from D—– for their Christmas dinner.

       They went to bed early, as lights were scarce. In the middle of the night a scrimmage began. From the store might be heard all sorts of queer noises: a scampering of hasty feet, sundry squeaks, Burke calling for the Boy, who did not come.

       He always had been a good hand at sleeping, in fact it was a standing joke at home that nothing ever woke him, and now he did not stir, though a rifle was fired close to his head, with only a thin partition between. He was dreaming of the old country, and of something which happened last summer, an incident in his life in which the mother and sisters had no part. The principal items consisted of a river and a blue-eyed girl, and glorious summer days. There had been walks by the river hand-in-hand, while the scent of wild roses was wafted to them from the hedges, and down in the low meadows the reapers called to each other among the new-mown hay.

       "Well, I never saw such a chap for sleeping!" was Burke's greeting next morning.

       "Why not?" queried the Boy, in innocent surprise at his eider's vexation.

       "Why not?" echoed Burke in an aggrieved tone. "Why, there was enough row in the store last night to wake the Seven Sleepers, and you never moved a hair. I don't believe you even heard me fire that gun."

       "Murder!" ejaculated the Boy. "What were you firing off guns for in the middle of the night?"

       "Rats," was the laconic reply, and Burke moved off to see about breakfast.

       It was a simple meal, cooked by themselves. No hot muffins or nicely-browned toast, no kidneys or fish. Such luxuries had been common enough at home but were now conspicuous by their absence. Out in the backwoods men learn that they can manage to exist without these delicacies. Porridge and weak tea, supplemented with a little cold bacon, composed their repast, and was hurried over, for there was much to be done.

       "I'll bring back a good supply of food," said Burke as they washed up the plates, "and we will have a Christmas feast. This grub is getting a little monotonous."

       By-and-bye he was gone. Then the Boy looked round to see where he should begin first. He had determined to give the store a good turn-out while Burke was away; it would be a splendid opportunity before the new things arrived.

       With his coat off and sleeves turned up to the elbow, he set to work. Out came a heterogeneous mass which would have caused Whiteley to open his eyes at the collection capable of being amassed in a West country store. Then the shelves were scrubbed down till the odour of soap and hot water suggested a laundry. In spite of the thermometer marking forty degrees of frost, the Boy wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

       "My word!" he ejaculated once, "this is hotter than a cricket match. I wonder what the girls would say if they saw me now?"

       He left the place to dry while he ate his dinner of hard biscuit and cheese, with the everlasting bacon. It was quite refreshing to look forward to the coming feast.

       "I never knew I cared so much for food before," said the Boy to himself; "but somehow turkey and plum pudding do help to make Christmas."

       During the afternoon two or three men lounged down from the town to get a little tobacco, and watched the process of tidying-up. They were almost as various as the goods they surveyed. A sharp-faced Jew and a burly German; an Oxford undergraduate and a French cook, who had left his country decidedly for that country's good, fraternized with a camaraderie which might have surprised their friends at home. A common tie drew them together: they all wanted work, and they were all strangers in a strange land. If the possession of money serves as a class-barrier, the want of it is the most potent leveller that ever existed.

       The Boy was on good terms with all his customers, and boasted of an acquaintance which comprised most nations on the globe — Danes, Finns, Swedes, French, Germans, Dutch, Spanish, Mexicans, Yankees, Canadians — a motley crew, with occupations as various. It had opened his eyes a bit to the fact that there are more creeds and diversities of opinion on the earth's surface than the stay-at-home world have any notion of.

       The undergraduate was learning something also, and communicated his experience as he lounged in the doorway after the others had gone.

       "Rum life this, isn't it, Williams?" he remarked, slowly drawing a whiff of his pipe.

       "Never expected it to be anything else," answered the Boy, standing back with his head on one side critically to survey the arrangement of a large bar of yellow soap just put in position on the shelf. The only idea which occurred to him was how exactly it resembled the pile of dry cheese at the other end.

       "Seems an awful waste of a fellow's education," continued the Oxonian. "What was the use of all my grinding at New, I should like to know? Much good it has done me. I haven't opened a book since I came out here. It was all that beastly exam.," he went on with sudden energy. "If my people had just been content to let me pull quietly through, instead of going in for honours and that stuff, I should have stayed in England and been a respectable member of society."

       "And a rare lazy one too," mentally added the Boy, who had enough common-sense to see that the free, open life was knocking the nonsense out of his companion, and teaching him that a man may still be a gentleman, though he does not keep his hands white and wear immaculate collars.

       "Tell you what, old chap," he said good-naturedly, "your people intended you for a statesman; and when you had played about with politics for a little while, and got the nation into a jolly mess, I should have suddenly appeared to act my part as a second Duke of Wellington, and extricated the country with honours! Only, you see, unfortunately neither of us quite realized in time what was expected of us, so it was no go: and here we are, to make our fortunes afresh."

       Then they both laughed, and the undergraduate went away.

       The store was a picture of neatness when finished. In the fast waning light, the Boy contemplated his handiwork and felt satisfied. He stretched his arms wearily and yawned. Five minutes later found him curled up in his deck chair professedly smoking a pipe-in reality, half asleep.

       By-and-bye he indulged in a little light refreshment of biscuit and cheese, by way of supper; after which there was mental relaxation in the shape of an old newspaper, come out by the mail several weeks ago now. But it did not contain much beyond election news and:

       "I'm sure I don't care who gets in for the beastly places," said the Boy, throwing it from him in disgust. "I'll write to the girls; they will like to know how we spend Christmas out here."

       He pulled his writing-case towards him and began writing rapidly. A long time afterwards the sisters read the unfinished letter, which, like a serial story, left off abruptly at the most interesting part:

       "After Christmas, Jem Smith and I hope to go up country for a bit, and expect to have rare fun if we can get some sport. We shall camp on —–"

       Here with a flicker the lamp went suddenly out.

       "Botheration!" said the Boy, "that's the last drop of oil."

       He groped about in the darkness till he reached the packing-case by his bedside, and felt the matches. But the light only revealing a solitary end of candle, he decided to abandon letter-writing for that evening and get straight into bed.

       His toilette did not take many minutes; only a few more had to be devoted to winding up the clock and setting straight the photographs. When the said arrangement was finished, a keen observer might have noticed one face missing from the group. Perhaps this accounted for the slight noise suspiciously like a kiss, which seemed to breathe through the cedar room after its owner had extinguished the light. But the darkness tells no tales; and soon there was no sound in the night save the regular breathing which suggested that the Boy was enjoying his well-earned rest.

       He was roused at an early hour by a workman coming for some oatmeal to make his morning porridge. Grumbling and only half awake, he turned out of bed into the cold, only to find that before the first claimant was satisfied, another arrived on a like errand.

       It was not worth while going back to bed after that, so he, had his own breakfast, and then set to work.

       The morning's occupation was more congenial to his mind, for it consisted in giving his own room a "clean-up." The gun had to be taken to pieces and polished, likewise the fishing-rod; then the spurs rubbed up till they shone like silver. It is a satisfactory job making one's own possessions look nice, and the Boy whistled as cheerily as a blackbird during the operation.

       Then he pulled open the portmanteau which had come out with him from England, and surveyed its contents with a grin. Some things still remained as they had first been packed. Foremost amongst them a pile of white shirts.

       "Much good they've been to me," ejaculated the Boy. "Wonder how many I've used out here? Two, I think. And I can't even sport one to-morrow, it is too cold for anything but flannel. But I'll have a collar, that will make me look rather more respectable, instead of this old handkerchief wound round my throat."

       He selected the whitest and best ironed, and chose one of his favourite ties, taking an absurdly keen pleasure in these preparations for Christmas.

       The day wore on apace, and there was nothing left to do. Finally, he decided to go for a walk in the direction of D—, and see if he could meet Burke.

       Walking was no easy task along the rough, newly-cut road. There was a bitter wind blowing, stinging his face like a knife, and making rapid movement necessary to promote circulation. The Boy trudged on with his hands in his pockets and whistling or singing as the mood took him. Occasionally he stumbled over the root of an old tree hidden in the snow, whereupon the singing changed to more forcible and less musical language.

       He had gone a long two miles, and was beginning to wish the sleigh would appear, when a sound broke on his ear.

       At first he fancied it was only the wind, but it came again between the gusts. A child crying.

       "Hullo, there!" he shouted.

       The crying ceased.

       "Hullo!" he called again. "Who is it, and where are you?"

       Through the wind came a weak little voice, declaring: "It's me, and I'm here."

       Guided as well as he could by the faint sound, the Boy turned in the direction from whence it seemed to proceed, and plunging into the snow on his left, ascended a little hillock, from whence, looking down on the other side, he could descry a small figure crouching under cover of a stunted tree.

       "Come up here," he called.

       "I can't," sobbed back the figure.

       Muttering something uncomplimentary to its owner, the Boy descended towards the tree, when his tone changed to one of surprise.

       "Why, it's Denver's little lad! What are you doing here, young shaver?"

       "Waiting for father," said the shivering little form with chattering teeth.

       "Why, your father has gone with Mr. Burke. How long have you been waiting?"

       "Ages and ages," answered the little lad, beginning to sob afresh at the thought.

       "Well, come along with me," said the Boy good-naturedly. "I am going to meet Mr. Burke, and if the sleigh does not come soon, we'll go home and get warm."

       The proposal sounded tempting, but the Boy hesitated.

       "Father told me I could come and meet him, and he'll be 'specting me."

       "Another Casabianca," muttered the Boy, "only at this minute I should prefer the heat to this cold." Then aloud: "Well, perhaps we shall meet your father; anyhow, come out of this, you are right away from the road, he would never see you."

       This last argument prevailed. But whether the child had really been there "ages" or not, he was too chilled and stiff with cold to walk. He looked up in his rescuer's face like a little terrier, mutely appealing for help.

       "Poor little chap, you are half frozen," said the Boy, who had a soft spot in his heart for children, and a special liking for the cheery little fellow whom he had often watched playing round the hotel. He was the apple of his father's eye, and even the roughest men had a friendly word for him, growing up in that free open life — a motherless waif.

       The Boy remembered this latter fact as he rubbed the blue little hands and wound his own comforter round the child's neck.

       "Look here," he said, "suppose I carry you as far as the road, and then we can walk along."

       It was no easy task getting up the slope, even with so light a weight. Every now and then the Boy stumbled over the hidden stumps, or by an unwary step plunged knee deep into the snow.

       "Now, then," he cried, when the summit was reached, "hold tight, and we'll go down here as fast as we can."

       But it was a case of "more haste less speed." Half-way down the Boy tripped over a knotted root and the two executed a somersault together in the snow.

       A merry peal of laughter showed that the little lad thoroughly appreciated the fun, but his companion did not get up so quickly, for a sudden pain shooting through his ankle brought him to the ground again directly he tried to rise.

       "Bother it!" he said. "I believe I've sprained my ankle."

       He sat still for a minute, then tried again. Setting his teeth, he hopped a few paces, but the pain was so excruciating that he had to stop. After resting a moment he started crawling, to the immense amusement of his childish spectator, who looked upon these performances as designed for his special benefit.

       But it was no laughing matter to the Boy. In spite of the intense cold, he had to wait to wipe the beads of perspiration from his forehead. The pain was making him feel horribly sick. Would that sleigh never come?

       His small companion came nearer with a scared face.

       "What's the matter with your foot?" he queried.

       "I've only hurt it a bit," answered the Boy as cheerfully as he could. "Just go down the slope, carefully, and look along the road, and shout as loud as you can if you see your father or Mr. Burke."

       Proud of his commission, the urchin carefully descended the hill, his light footfall making more rapid progress than a heavier tread. It was harder work coming back, to report that his mission had been fruitless. Several more similar expeditions met with a like result; then the little messenger began to weary.

       The afternoon, too, was waning fast.

       "Hullo! what are you doing?" questioned the Boy, seeing the tiny figure arranging itself on the snow at the bottom of the hill with the obvious intention of taking a nap. "You can't go to sleep here — you'll freeze to death."

       But he might have spoken to the wind. His long waiting and toils had quite worn out the youthful watcher, and even while his elder spoke he had dropped off into a dreamless slumber.

       "What on earth am I to do with him?" puzzled the Boy.

       He crawled along the snow to his side and looked down at the unconscious face.

       "Poor little chap; I hope he won't catch cold before they come."

       His fingers were busy unbuttoning his own great-coat, which soon enveloped the child like a blanket.

       Phew! how the wind whistled and howled, as if it were redoubling its force out of sheer malice towards its unprotected victim.

       "Bad for my rheumatics," muttered the Boy as gravely as an old man of eighty. But he had had a touch of rheumatic fever at school.

       He swung his arms backwards — and forwards after the fashion of London cabmen to keep up the circulation, shouting every now and again lest the sleigh should pass them in the gathering dusk.

       Would it never come?

       The wind grew colder and colder, and his foot, which felt as big as two ordinary feet, was getting perfectly numb. He was beginning to feel pretty cold all over by now — a dazed, stupid sensation, as if he did not quite know what he was doing. Even singing, the words got mixed.

       Once he peeped inside the bundle at his side. It was warm as a toast. Denver's little lad was right, at all events.

       Darker fell the evening shadows ; sharper and keener blew the wintry blast. Time seemed to become a little confused. Was it night or morning?

       When the sleigh lumbered slowly along at last, the tired horse suddenly shied at something by the roadside. An oddly-shaped bundle, and a coatless figure waving one arm about in an aimless fashion, was what the lantern revealed when brought to bear upon the scene.

       Burke was out of the sleigh in another moment, with a smothered exclamation, and had them both in before Denver grasped the situation.

       Questions were useless where one was asleep and the either too stupefied to answer. Something of the state of affairs dawned on the two men as they hastened homeward.

       They put the Boy to bed, and applied what remedies they possessed. The little lad was roused, to swallow unwillingly a hot potion prepared by his father, then fell peacefully asleep again, curled up in a blanket before the stove.

       Burke heated the cedar room till it was like an oven, and sat up all night. No fear of the Boy being cold now. He was tossing about in a fever, begging for something cool to drink, while every breath was like a knife in his side.

       With the first streak of dawn on Christmas morning Denver came and looked sorrowfully down at the bed.

       "I'm off," he said, "and I'll bring a doctor if I can, for he looks powerful bad. Take care of the little lad for me, master." And he was gone.

       Twenty miles to N—–, and the roads as bad as they could be.

       Christmas Day dragged wearily by. The little lad was made happy with a sumptuous dinner, wondering why no one else touched the good things, and why his friend on the bed was talking such nonsense and never lay still for a minute.

       Tick, tick, tick; the little clock on the shelf went merrily on till evening; then stopped, because no one remembered to wind it up.

       Burke took out his watch.

       "Only half-past seven," he muttered, "and we must get through the night somehow. Denver cannot be here till morning."

       The child slipped down to the floor and curled himself up for the night. Burke covered him with a rug. While doing so, his eye caught sight of the clean collar and tie arranged on the table.

       He took them up pityingly.

       "Poor old chap, I suppose he thought he would be a gentleman again for once."

       This thought suggested a new train of ideas, and he crossed over to the bed. Leaning down, he tried to rivet the attention of those restless, wandering eyes.

       "I say, old chap, just be quiet a moment, and listen to me, will you? It's a splendid thing you've done, you know. In the army — are you listening? — they give the V.C. to men who save other fellows' lives at the risk of their own. Do you hear? — the V.C."

       But the Boy was babbling of green fields and his mother and the old home, utterly oblivious of earthly distinctions or his friend's attempt at comfort.

       When the doctor arrived the next morning, driven at Denver's utmost speed, the cedar room was looking its best. A ruddy glow from the stove caught the spurs on the wall, and burnished the rifle till it shone like gold. The newly-plenished lamp seemed cheerily to assert that there was now no lack of oil.

       Only on the camp bed in the corner the Boy was lying strangely white and still, with the happiest imaginable smile on his face.

       And Burke, his head bowed down on the packing case, was sobbing like a child.

M. F. W.       

(THE END)