For a moment or two he hesitated, looking round for the ax.

"Try them again, Ranald," cried Farquhar. "Haw them a bit."

Once more Ranald picked up the lines, swung his horses round to the left, held them steady a moment or two, and then with a yell sent them at their pull. Magnificently the blacks responded, furiously tearing up the ground with their feet. A moment or two they hung straining on their chain, refusing to come back, when slowly the stump began to move.

"You have got it," cried Farquhar. "Gee them a point or two."

But already Ranald had seen that this was necessary, and once more backed his team to readjust the chain which had slipped off the top. As he fastened the hook he heard a sharp "Back!" behind him, and he knew that the next moment Aleck's team would be away with their load. With a yell he sprang at his lines, lashed the blacks over the back, and called to them once more. Again his team responded, and with a mighty heave, the stump came slowly out, carrying with it what looked like half a ton of earth. But even as it heaved, he heard Aleck's call and the answering crash, and before he could get his team a-going, the French-Canadians were off for their pile at a gallop, with the lines flying in the air behind them. A moment later he followed, the blacks hauling their stump at a run.

Together he and Aleck reached the pile. It only remained now to unhook the chain. In vain he tugged and hauled. The chain was buried deep beneath the stump and refused to move, and before he could swing his team about and turn the stump over, he heard Aleck's shout of victory.

But as he dropped his chain and was leisurely backing his horses, he heard old Farquhar cry, "Hurry, man! Hurry, for the life of you!"

Without waiting to inquire the reason, Ranald wheeled his team, gave the stump a half turn, released his chain, and drove off from the pile, to find Aleck still busy hooking his chain to his whiffletree.

Aleck had had the same difficulty in freeing his chain as Ranald, but instead of trying to detach it from the stump, he had unhooked the other end, and then, with a mighty backward jerk, had snatched it from the stump. But before he could attach it to his place on the whiffletree again, Ranald stood ready for work.

"A win, lad! A win!" cried old Farquhar, more excited than he had been for years.

"It is no win," said Aleck, hotly.

"No, no, lads," said Macdonald Bhain, before Farquhar could reply. "It is as even a match as could well be. It is fine teams you both have got, and you have handled them well."

But all the same, Ranald's friends were wildly enthusiastic over what they called his victory, and Don could hardly keep his hands off him, for very joy.

Aleck, on the other hand, while claiming the victory because his team was at the pile first, was not so sure of it but that he was ready to fight with any one venturing to dispute his claim. But the men all laughed at him and his rage, until he found it wiser to be good-humored about it.

"Yon lad will be making as good a man as yourself," said Farquhar, enthusiastically, to Macdonald Bhain, as Ranald drove his team to the stable.

"Aye, and a better, pray God," said Macdonald Bhain, fervently, looking after Ranald with loving eyes. There was no child in his home, and his brother's son was as his own.

Meanwhile Don had hurried on, leaving his team with Murdie that he might sing Ranald's praises to "the girls," with whom Ranald was highly popular, although he avoided them, or perhaps because he did so, the ways of women being past understanding.

To Mrs. Murray and Maimie, who with the minister and Hughie, had come over to the supper, he went first with his tale. Graphically he depicted the struggle from its beginning to the last dramatic rush to the pile, dilating upon Ranald's skill and pluck, and upon the wonderful and hitherto unknown virtues of Farquhar's shiny blacks.

"You ought to see them!" cried Don. "You bet they never moved in their lives the way they did today. Tied him!" he continued. "Tied him! Beat him, I say, but Macdonald Bhain says 'Tied him'--Aleck McRae, who thinks himself so mighty smart with his team."

Don forgot in his excitement that the McRaes and their friends were there in numbers.

"So he is," cried Annie Ross, one of Aleck's admirers. "There is not a man in the Indian Lands that can beat Aleck and his team."

"Well," exulted Don, "a boy came pretty near it to-day."

But Annie only stuck out her lip at him in the inimitable female manner, and ran off to add to the mischief that Don had already made between Ranald and his rival.

But now the day's work was over, and the hour for the day's event had come, for supper was the great event to which all things moved at bees.

The long tables stood under the maple trees, spread with the richest, rarest, deadliest dainties known to the housewives and maidens of the countryside. About the tables stood in groups the white-aproned girls, tucked and frilled, curled and ribboned into all degrees of bewitching loveliness. The men hurried away with their teams, and then gave themselves to the serious duty of getting ready for supper, using many pails of water in their efforts to remove the black from the burnt wood of the brule.

At length the women lost all patience with them, and sent Annie Ross, with two or three companions, to call them to supper. With arms intertwined, and with much chattering and giggling, the girls made their way to the group of men, some of whom were engaged in putting the finishing touches to their toilet.

"Supper is ready," cried Annie, "and long past ready. You need not be trying to fix yourselves up so fine. You are just as bad as any girls.

Oh!" Her speech ended in a shriek, which was echoed by the others, for Aleck McRae rushed at them, stretching out his black hands toward them.

But they were too quick for him, and fled for protection to the safe precincts of the tables.

At length, when the last of the men had made themselves, as they thought, presentable, they began to make their approach to the tables, slowly and shyly for the most part, each waiting for the other. Aleck McRae, however, knew little of shyness, but walked past the different groups of girls, throwing on either hand a smile, a wink, or a word, as he might find suitable.

Suddenly he came upon the group where the minister's wife and her niece were standing. Here, for the moment, his ease forsook him, but Mrs.

Murray came to meet him with outstretched hand.

"So you still retain your laurels?" she said, with a frank smile. "I hear it was a great battle."

Aleck shook hands with her rather awkwardly. He was not on the easiest terms with the minister and his wife. He belonged distinctly to the careless set, and rather enjoyed the distinction.

"Oh, it was not much," he said; "the teams were well matched."

"Oh, I should like to have been there. You should have told us beforehand."

"Oh, it was more than I expected myself," he said. "I didn't think it was in Farquhar's team."

He could not bring himself to give any credit to Ranald, and though Mrs.

Murray saw this, she refused to notice it. She was none the less anxious to win Aleck's confidence, because she was Ranald's friend.

"Do you know my niece?" she said, turning to Maimie.

Aleck looked into Maimie's face with such open admiration that she felt the blush come up in her cheeks.

"Indeed, she is worth knowing, but I don't think she will care to take such a hand as that," he said, stretching out a hand still grimy in spite of much washing. But Maimie had learned something since coming to her aunt, and she no longer judged men by the fit of their clothes, or the color of their skin, or the length of their hair; and indeed, as she looked at Aleck, with his close-buttoned smock, and overalls with the legs tucked neatly into the tops of his boots, she thought he was the trimmest figure she had seen since coming to the country. She took Aleck's hand and shook it warmly, the full admiration in his handsome black eyes setting her blood tingling with that love of conquest that lies in every woman's heart. So she flung out her flag of war, and smiled back at him her sweetest.

"You have a fine team, I hear," she said, as her aunt moved away to greet some of the other men, who were evidently waiting to get a word with her.

"That I have, you better believe," replied Aleck, proudly.

"It was very clever of Ranald to come so near beating you, wasn't it?"

she said, innocently. "He must be a splendid driver."

"He drives pretty well," admitted Aleck. "He did nothing else all last winter in the shanties."

"He is so young, too," went on Maimie. "Just a boy, isn't he?"

Aleck was not sure how to take this. "He does not think so," he answered, shortly. "He thinks he is no end of a man, but he will have to learn something before he is much older."

"But he can drive, you say," continued Maimie, wickedly keeping her finger on the sore spot.

"Oh, pshaw!" replied Aleck, boldly. "You think a lot of him, don't you?

And I guess you are a pair."

Maimie tossed her head at this. "We are very good friends, of course,"

she said, lightly. "He is a very nice boy, and we are all fond of him; but he is just a boy; he is Hughie's great friend."