“You let me tak’ paddle,” he said to Jack. “Need work keep warm, oui.” Carefully the two changed places and in another moment the canoe was speeding back. Rapidly the lake was clearing of ice and only occasionally did they have to swerve from a straight course to avoid a floe, and soon they reached the wharf. “Hurry up to the office now,” Bob ordered, as he sprang from the canoe. Fortunately they found a good fire roaring in the office stove. Tom Bean, the camp foreman, was at the desk doing something with a big account book as they pushed open the door. “Bejabbers, and it looks like ye’d been in the drink, so it does,” he declared, as he got up from his chair and greeted the big Frenchman with a hearty hand shake. “Oui, dat water he ver’ wet,” Jacques grinned, as he stretched out his hands to the grateful heat of the stove. “Got anything he can put on, Tom?” Bob asked. “He must get into something dry right away.” “Sure and it’s meself thot’ll find something,” the Irishman assured him, as he disappeared into the little bedroom which opened out of the office. Jacques Lamont was an old friend of the Golden boys. He had worked for their father many years, but this winter he had spent in trapping away up over the Canadian line. About fifty years old, his out-of-door life and clean living had caused the passing years to deal very lightly with him and he would readily have passed for fifteen years younger. Tom was back in a few minutes with an armful of clothes. “Thar, I gess thot’ll fix ye,” he declared, as he threw them on a chair. “They may be a bit small but they’re the biggest I’ve got.” Jacques quickly stripped and, after a brisk rub with a coarse towel, proceeded to don the clothing which Tom had supplied. “You haven’t told us how you came to be on the ice,” Jack said. By this time Jacques was nearly dressed and told them how he had been down to Greenville, a small town about twenty miles down the lake, to sell his furs. He had come up to the Kineo House, a large summer hotel on the other side of the lake, the day before, to see a man on a matter of business. But the man was not there, and learning that he would not be there until the next day, he had started across the lake early that morning to see his friends at the camp. “I tink der ice no go out so soon,” he explained. “But she bust up ver’ queek and I geet caught, oui. You boys save my life. I, Jacques Lamont, never forgeet heem.” “That’s all right, old man,” Bob assured him, with a hearty slap on the back. “Just forget it.” “Non, no forgeet,” the Frenchman insisted. “Some time I do sumtin for you, oui.” “As if you hadn’t fifty times over,” Jack broke in. “But come on. There goes the dinner horn and I’m hungry enough to eat all the cook has got, so if you folks want anything, you’d better get a hustle on.” “How about those trout?” Bob asked, as he started for the door.