It was very late that night when the men at the mines heard the even gallop of an approaching horse. Many of the miners had gone to bed grumbling and threatening when no mail had arrived and no wages were paid. The manager and his assistants were still up, however, perplexed and worried that, for the first time, old Maurice Delorme had failed to reach the camp with the company's money bags. But up the rough makeshift of a road came those galloping hoofs, halting before the primitive post office, while the crowd gathered and welcomed a strange trio. The manager himself lifted poor, stiff, tired "Little" Maurice from the back of an equally stiff, tired mountain pony, while a hot, hungry hound whined about, trying to tell the whole story in his wonderful dog fashion; but, when they did hear the real story from Maurice, there was a momentary silence, then a rough old miner fairly shouted, "Well, by the Great Horn Spoon, he's old Maurice Delorme's son all right!" Then came--cheers! The Whistling Swans For several evenings early in October the North Street boys had been gathering at Benson's to try and organize a club, but the difficulty seemed to be to decide upon what kind of a club would be most interesting. The ball season would soon be over, the long winter would soon be on them, and things wore a pretty flat outlook, unless they could arrange some interesting diversion for that string of dull days, only broken by Christmas holidays. The West Ward fellows had a Checker Club, the Third Form fellows had a Puzzle Club, the Collegiates had a Canadian Literature Club; even the Mill boys down on the Flats had a Captain Kidd Club, proving themselves at times bandits quite worthy the club's name. Only the North Street boys seemed "out of it," but from the way they talked and shouted and wrangled at these preliminary meetings it looked as if they certainly intended to "come in" out of their isolation. But there had been five meetings without any decision having been arrived at. Every boy of the ten present seemed to want a different sort of club. The things that were suggested would have amazed the members of the various other clubs could they have heard them. Then, one night when the din and confusion were at fever heat, the door suddenly opened and in walked Benson's father. "Why, what's all this babel?" he exclaimed, as silence fell on the crowd and the boys got to their feet meekly to greet him with polite "good-evenings." "I never heard such a parrot-and-monkey, Kilkenny-cat outfit in all my life! What's up, fellows?"