The talk was of the famine, but it was the talk of men.

Even Dave Harney forgot to curse the country for its sugar shortage, and waxed facetious over the newcomers,--_chechaquos_, he called them, having recourse to the Siwash tongue.

In the midst of his remarks his quick eye lighted on a black speck floating down with the mush-ice of the river.

"Jest look at that!" he cried.

"A Peterborough canoe runnin' the ice!" Twisting and turning, now paddling, now shoving clear of the floating cakes, the two men in the canoe worked in to the rim-ice, along the edge of which they drifted, waiting for an opening.