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.