“Three weeks ...  Yes, confound it!  That is what I think too.”

They fell silent again, patient and determined, like men who face a long war.

The Canadian spring had but known a few weeks of life when, by calendar, the summer was already come; it seemed as if the local weather god had incontinently pushed the season forward with august finger to bring it again into accord with more favoured lands to the south.  For torrid heat fell suddenly upon them, heat well-nigh as unmeasured as was the winter’s cold.  The tops of the spruces and cypresses, forgotten by the wind, were utterly still, and above the frowning outline stretched a sky bare of cloud which likewise seemed fixed and motionless.  From dawn till nightfall a merciless sun calcined the ground.

The five men worked on unceasingly, while from day to day the clearing extended its borders by a little; deep wounds in the uncovered soil showed the richness of it.

Maria went forth one morning to carry them water.  The father and Tit’Be were cutting alders, Da’Be and Esdras piled the cut trees.  Edwige Legare was attacking a stump by himself; a hand against the trunk, he had grasped a root with the other as one seizes the leg of some gigantic adversary in a struggle, and he was fighting the combined forces of wood and earth like a man furious at the resistance of an enemy.  Suddenly the stump yielded and lay upon the ground; he passed a hand over his forehead and sat down upon a root, running with sweat, overcome by the exertion.  When Maria came near him with her pail half full of. water, the others having drunk, he was still seated, breathing deeply and saying in a bewildered way:—­“I am done for ...  Ah!  I am done for.”  But he pulled himself together on seeing her, and roared out—­“Cold water!  Perdition!  Give me cold water.”

Seizing the bucket he drank half its contents and poured the rest over his head and neck; still dripping, he threw himself afresh upon the vanquished stump and began to roll it toward a pile as one carries off a prize.

Maria stayed for a few moments looking at the work of the men and the progress they had made, each day more evident, then hied her back to the house swinging the empty bucket, happy to feel herself alive and well under the bright sun, dreaming of all the joys that were to be hers, nor could be long delayed if only she were earnest and patient enough in her prayers.  Even at a distance the voices of the men came to her across the surface of the ground baked by the heat; Esdras, his hands beneath a young jack pine, was saying in his quiet tones:—­“Gently ... together now!”

Legare was wrestling with some new inert foe, and swearing in his half-stifled way:—­“Perdition!  I’ll make you stir, so I will.”  His gasps were nearly as audible as the words.  Taking breath for a second he rushed once more into the fray, arms straining, wrenching with his great back.  And yet again his voice was raised in oaths and lamentations:-"I tell you that I’ll have you ...  Oh you rascal!  Isn’t it hot? . .  I’m pretty nearly finished ...”  His complaints ripened into one mighty cry:—­“Boss!  We are going to kill ourselves making land.”