athwart so that the prow will lighten and rise to the climbing wave, but the green hands--the gay dons who left home in such a flush of glory--mutter “_c’est la misère, c’est la misère, mon bourgeois_,” _bourgeois_ being the habitant’s name for the partners of the Company; and misery it is, indeed, if ice glasses the canoe and the craft becomes frost-logged. They must land then and repair the canoe where the bark has been jagged, new bark being gummed on where the cuts are deep, resin and tar run along all fissures. And these Nor’Westers are very wolves for time. Repairs must be done by torchlight at night. In fair weather, the men sleep on the sand. In bad weather, tarpaulin is put up as a wind-break. Reveille is sounded at first dawn streak--a bugle call if a partner is in camp, a shout from the chief steersman if the brigades have become scattered--“Levé! Levé!” By four in the morning, canoes are again on the water. At eight, the brigades land for breakfast. If weather be favorable for speed, they will not pause for mid-day meal but eat a snack of biscuit or pemmican as they run across the portages. Night meal comes when they can see to go no farther, and often relays of paddles are put on and the brigades paddle all night. The men have slim fare--grease and barley meal and pemmican, and the greenhorns frequently set up such a wail for the pork diet of the home table that they become known as the “_mangeurs de lard_,” “_the pork eaters_,” between Montreal and Lake Superior, or “the comers and goers,” because the men on this part of the voyage to the Up Country are freighters constantly coming and going. At each fresh portage the new hand must stand for treats to his comrades, or risk a ducking, or prove himself a better wrestler than they. At the hardest places and the hardest pace, the bourgeois unbends and gives his men a _régale_, which means rum. The Sault at the west side of Lake Huron leading up to Lake Superior is the last military post--the outermost reach of the law’s arm. Beyond the Sault--as the priests had warned--is law of neither God nor man. Beyond the Sault, letters from home friends to the voyageurs bear the significant address, “_Wherever He May Be Found_.” At the Sault on the north side, the Nor’Westers constructed a canal with locks, for they had two sailing vessels patrolling the lakes--_The Otter_ and _The Beaver_--one bound for the Detroit trade, the other from the Sault across Lake Superior. As the superstitious half-breeds passed from the Sault to Lake Superior, it was an Indian custom to drop an arrow on the shore as an offering to keep the devil from doing them harm on the boisterous waters of Lake Superior. Many a canoe was swamped by head winds crossing Lake Superior. To avoid risk, the brigades skirted close to the north shore, till they came to the Company’s headquarters at Fort William, formerly known as Grand Portage.