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Lost in the Backwoods: A Tale of the Canadian Forest

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill · English · Gutenberg #6813 · 433,856 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Lost in the Backwoods: A Tale of the Canadian Forest

Author: Catharine Parr Strickland Traill


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6813]
                Most recently updated: April 10, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6813

Credits: Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions


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Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team This file was produced from images generously made
available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
Microreproductions.










LOST IN THE BACKWOODS.

A TALE OF THE CANADIAN FOREST.




BY MRS. TRAILL





Preface


The interesting tale contained in this volume of romantic adventure in
the forests of Canada, was much appreciated and enjoyed by a large circle
of young readers when first published, under the title of "The Canadian
Crusoes." After being many years out of print, it will now, we hope and
believe, with a new and more descriptive title, prove equally attractive
to our young friends of the present time.

EDINBURGH, 1882.




CHAPTER I.

  "The morning had shot her bright streamers on high,
   O'er Canada, opening all pale to the sky,
   Still dazzling and white was the robe that she wore,
   Except where the ocean wave lashed on the shore"

  _Jacobite Song_


There lies, between the Rice Lake and the Ontario, a deep and fertile
valley, surrounded by lofty wood-crowned hills, clothed chiefly with
groves of oak and pine, the sides of the hills and the alluvial
bottoms display a variety of noble timber trees of various kinds, as
the useful and beautiful maple, beech, and hemlock. This beautiful and
highly picturesque valley is watered by many clear streams, whence it
derives its appropriate appellation of "Cold Springs."

At the period my little history commences, this now highly cultivated
spot was an unbroken wilderness,--all but two clearings, where dwelt
the only occupiers of the soil,--which previously owned no other
possessors than the wandering hunting tribes of wild Indians, to whom
the right of the hunting grounds north of Rice Lake appertained,
according to their forest laws.

I speak of the time when the neat and flourishing town of Cobourg, now
an important port on Lake Ontario, was but a village in embryo,--if it
contained even a log-house or a block-house, it was all that it
did,--and the wild and picturesque ground upon which the fast
increasing village of Port Hope is situated had not yielded one forest
tree to the axe of the settler. No gallant vessel spread her sails to
waft the abundant produce of grain and Canadian stores along the
waters of that noble sheet of water; no steamer had then furrowed its
bosom with her iron paddles, bearing the stream of emigration towards
the wilds of our northern and western forests, there to render a
lonely trackless desert a fruitful garden. What will not time and the
industry of man, assisted by the blessing of a merciful God, effect?
To him be the glory and honour; for we are taught that "unless the
Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it: without
the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

But to my tale. And first it will be necessary to introduce to the
acquaintance of my young readers the founders of our little settlement
at Cold Springs.

Duncan Maxwell was a young Highland soldier, a youth of eighteen, at
the famous battle of Quebec, where, though only a private, he received
the praise of his colonel for his brave conduct. At the close of the
battle Duncan was wounded; and as the hospital was full at the time,
he was billeted in the house of a poor French Canadian widow in the
Quebec suburb. Here, though a foreigner and an enemy, he received much
kind attention from his excellent hostess and her family, consisting
of a young man about his own age, and a pretty black-eyed lass not
more than sixteen. The widow Perron was so much occupied with other
lodgers--for she kept a sort of boarding-house--that she had not much
time to give to Duncan, so that he was left a great deal to her son
Pierre, and a little to Catharine, her daughter.

Duncan Maxwell was a fine, open-tempered, frank lad, and he soon won
the regard of Pierre and his sister. In spite of the prejudices of
country, and the difference of language and national customs, a steady
and increasing friendship grew up between the young Highlander and the
children of his hostess; therefore it was not without feelings of deep
regret that they heard the news that the regiment to which Duncan
belonged was ordered for embarkation to England, and Duncan was so far
convalescent as to be pronounced quite well enough to join it. Alas
for poor Catharine! she now found that parting with her patient was a
source of the deepest sorrow to her young and guileless heart; nor was
Duncan less moved at the separation from his gentle nurse. It might be
for years, and it might be for ever, he could not tell; but he could
not tear himself away without telling the object of his affections how
dear she was to him, and to whisper a hope that he might yet return
one day to claim her as his bride; and Catharine, weeping and
blushing, promised to wait for that happy day, or to remain single for
his sake.

They say the course of true love never did run smooth; but with the
exception of this great sorrow, the sorrow of separation, the love of
our young Highland soldier and his betrothed knew no other
interruption, for absence served only to strengthen the affection
which was founded on gratitude and esteem.

Two long years passed, however, and the prospect of reunion was yet
distant, when an accident, which disabled Duncan from serving his
country, enabled him to retire with the usual little pension, and
return to Quebec to seek his affianced. Some changes had taken place
during that short period: the widow Perron was dead; Pierre, the gay,
lively-hearted Pierre, was married to a daughter of a lumberer; and
Catharine, who had no relatives in Quebec, had gone up the country
with her brother and his wife, and was living in some little
settlement above Montreal with them.

Thither Duncan followed, and shortly afterwards was married to his
faithful Catharine. On one point they had never differed, both being
of the same religion.

Pierre had seen a good deal of the fine country on the shores of Lake
Ontario; he had been hunting with some friendly Indians between the
great waters and the Rice Lake; and he now thought if Duncan and
himself could make up their minds to a quiet life in the woods, there
was not a better spot than the hill pass between the plains and the
big lake to fix themselves upon. Duncan was of the same opinion when
he saw the spot. It was not rugged and bare like his own Highlands,
but softer in character, yet his heart yearned for the hill country.
In those days there was no obstacle to taking possession of any tract
of land in the unsurveyed forests; therefore Duncan agreed with his
brother-in-law to pioneer the way with him, get a dwelling put up, and
some ground prepared and "seeded down," and then to return for their
wives, and settle as farmers. Others had succeeded, had formed little
colonies, and become the heads of villages in due time; why should not
they? And now behold our two backwoodsmen fairly commencing their
arduous life: it was nothing, after all, to Pierre, by previous
occupation a hardy lumberer, or the Scottish soldier, accustomed to
brave all sorts of hardships in a wild country, himself a mountaineer,
inured to a stormy climate and scanty fare from his earliest youth.
But it is not my intention to dwell upon the trials and difficulties
courageously met and battled with by our settlers and their young
wives.

There was in those days a spirit of resistance among the first
settlers on the soil, a spirit to do and bear, that is less commonly
met with now. The spirit of civilization is now so widely diffused,
that her comforts are felt even in the depths of the forest, so that
the newly come emigrant feels comparatively few of the physical evils
that were endured by the earlier inhabitants.

The first seed-wheat that was cast into the ground by Duncan and
Pierre was brought with infinite trouble a distance of fifty miles in
a little skiff, navigated along the shores of Lake Ontario by the
adventurous Pierre, and from the nearest landing-place transported on
the shoulders of himself and Duncan to their homestead. A day of great
labour but great joy it was when they deposited their precious freight
in safety on the shanty floor. They were obliged to make two journeys
for the contents of the little craft. What toil, what privation they
endured for the first two years! and now the fruits of it began to
appear.

No two creatures could be more unlike than Pierre and Duncan. The
Highlander, stern, steady, persevering, cautious, always giving ample
reasons for his doing or his not doing. The Canadian, hopeful, lively,
fertile in expedients, and gay as a lark; if one scheme failed,
another was sure to present itself. Pierre and Duncan were admirably
suited to be friends and neighbours. The steady perseverance of the
Scot helped to temper the volatile temperament of the Frenchman. They
generally contrived to compass the same end by different means, as two
streams descending from opposite hills will meet in one broad river in
the same valley.

Years passed on: the farm, carefully cultivated, began to yield its
increase; food and warm clothing were not wanting in the homestead.
Catharine had become, in course of time, the happy mother of four
healthy children; her sister-in-law had exceeded her in these welcome
contributions to the population of a new colony.

Between the children of Pierre and Catharine the most charming harmony
prevailed; they grew up as one family, a pattern of affection and
early friendship. Though different in tempers and dispositions, Hector
Maxwell, the eldest son of the Scottish soldier, and his cousin, young
Louis Perron, were greatly attached: they, with the young Catharine
and Mathilde, formed a little coterie of inseparables; their
amusements, tastes, pursuits, occupations, all blended and harmonized
delightfully; there were none of those little envyings and bickerings
among them that pave the way to strife and disunion in after-life.

Catharine Maxwell and her cousin Louis were more like brother and
sister than Hector and Catharine; but Mathilde was gentle and
dove-like, and formed a contrast to the gravity of Hector and the
vivacity of Louis and Catharine.

Hector and Louis were fourteen--strong, vigorous, industrious, and
hardy, both in constitution and habits. The girls were turned of
twelve. It is not with Mathilde that our story is connected, but with
the two lads and Catharine. With the gaiety and _naivete_ of the
Frenchwoman, Catharine possessed, when occasion called it into action,
a thoughtful and well-regulated mind, abilities which would well have
repaid the care of mental cultivation; but of book-learning she knew
nothing beyond a little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired
from her father's teaching. It was an accomplishment which he had
gained when in the army, having been taught by his colonel's son, a
lad of twelve years of age, who had taken a great fancy to him, and
had at parting given him a few of his school-books, among which was a
Testament without cover or title-page. At parting, the young gentleman
recommended its daily perusal to Duncan. Had the gift been a Bible,
perhaps the soldier's obedience to his priest might have rendered it a
dead letter to him; but as it fortunately happened, he was unconscious
of any prohibition to deter him from becoming acquainted with the
truths of the gospel. He communicated the power of perusing his books
to his children Hector and Catharine, Duncan and Kenneth, in
succession, with a feeling of intense reverence; even the labour of
teaching was regarded as a holy duty in itself, and was not undertaken
without deeply impressing the obligation he was conferring upon them
whenever they were brought to the task. It was indeed a precious boon,
and the children learned to consider it as a pearl beyond all price in
the trials that awaited them in their eventful career. To her
knowledge of religious truths young Catharine added an intimate
acquaintance with the songs and legends of her father's romantic
country; often would her plaintive ballads and old tales, related in
the hut or the wigwam to her attentive auditors, wile away heavy
thoughts.

It was a lovely sunny day in the flowery month of June. Canada had not
only doffed that "dazzling white robe" mentioned in the songs of her
Jacobite emigrants, but had assumed the beauties of her loveliest
season; the last week in May and the first three of June being
parallel to the English May, full of buds and flowers and fair promise
of ripening fruits.

The high sloping hills surrounding the fertile vale of Cold Springs
were clothed with the blossoms of the gorgeous scarlet castilegia
coccinea, or painted-cup; the large, pure, white blossoms of the
lily-like trillium grandiflorum; the delicate and fragile lilac
geranium, whose graceful flowers woo the hand of the flower-gatherer
only to fade almost within his grasp: the golden cypripedium or
moccasin flower, so singular, so lovely in its colour and formation,
waved heavily its yellow blossoms as the breeze shook the stems; and
there, mingling with a thousand various floral beauties, the azure
lupine claimed its place, shedding almost a heavenly tint upon the
earth. Thousands of roses were blooming on the more level ground,
sending forth their rich fragrance, mixed with the delicate scent of
the feathery ceanothus (New Jersey tea). The vivid greenness of the
young leaves of the forest, the tender tint of the springing corn, was
contrasted with the deep dark fringe of waving pines on the hills, and
the yet darker shade of the spruce and balsams on the borders of the
creeks, for so our Canadian forest rills are universally termed. The
bright glancing wings of the summer red-bird, the crimson-headed
woodpecker, the gay blue-bird, and noisy but splendid plumed jay might
be seen among the branches; the air was filled with beauteous sights
and soft murmuring sounds.

Under the shade of the luxuriant hop-vines that covered the rustic
porch in front of the little dwelling, the light step of Catharine
Maxwell might be heard mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big
wheel, as she passed to and fro guiding the thread of yarn in its
course. And now she sang snatches of old mountain songs, such as she
had learned from her father; and now, with livelier air, hummed some
gay French tune to the household melody of her spinning-wheel, as she
advanced and retreated with her thread, unconscious of the laughing
black eyes that were watching her movements from among the embowering
foliage that shielded her from the morning sun.

"Come, ma belle cousine," for so Louis delighted to call her. "Hector
and I are waiting for you to go with us to the 'Beaver Meadow.' The
cattle have strayed, and we think we shall find them there. The day is
delicious, the very flowers look as if they wanted to be admired and
plucked, and we shall find early strawberries on the old Indian
clearing."

Catharine cast a longing look abroad, but said, "I fear I cannot go
to-day; for see, I have all these rolls of wool to spin up, and my
yarn to wind off the reel and twist; and then, my mother is away."

"Yes, I left her with mamma," replied Louis, "and she said she would
be home shortly, so her absence need not stay you. She said you could
take a basket and try and bring home some berries for sick Louise.
Hector is sure he knows a spot where we shall get some fine ones, ripe
and red." As he spoke Louis whisked away the big wheel to one end of
the porch, gathered up the hanks of yarn and tossed them into the open
wicker basket, and the next minute the large, coarse, flapped straw
hat, that hung upon the peg in the porch, was stuck not very
gracefully on Catharine's head and tied beneath her chin, with a merry
rattling laugh, which drowned effectually the small lecture that
Catharine began to utter by way of reproving the light-hearted boy.

"But where is Mathilde?"

"Sitting like a dear good girl, as she is, with sick Louise's head in
her lap, and would not disturb her for all the fruit and flowers in
Canada. Marie cried sadly to go with us, but I promised her and Louise
lots of flowers and berries if we get them, and the dear children were
as happy as queens when I left."

"But stay, cousin, you are sure my mother gave her consent to my
going? We shall be away chief part of the day. You know it is a long
walk to the Beaver Meadow and back again," said Catharine, hesitating
as Louis took her hand to lead her out from the porch.

"Yes, yes, ma belle," said the giddy boy quickly; "so come along, for
Hector is waiting at the barn. But stay, we shall be hungry before we
return, so let us have some cakes and butter, and do not forget a tin
cup for water."

Nothing doubting, Catharine, with buoyant spirits, set about her
little preparations, which were soon completed; but just as she was
leaving the little garden enclosure, she ran back to kiss Kenneth and
Duncan, her young brothers. In the farm-yard she found Hector with his
axe on his shoulder. "What are you taking the axe for, Hector? you
will find it heavy to carry," said his sister.

"In the first place, I have to cut a stick of blue beech to make a
broom for sweeping the house, sister of mine, and that is for your
use, Miss Kate, and in the next place, I have to find, if possible, a
piece of rock elm or hickory for axe handles: so now you have the
reason why I take the axe with me."

The children left the clearing and struck into one of the deep defiles
that lay between the hills, and cheerfully they laughed and sung and
chattered, as they sped on their pleasant path, nor were they loath to
exchange the glowing sunshine for the sober gloom of the forest shade.
What handfuls of flowers of all hues, red, blue, yellow, and white,
were gathered, only to be gazed at, carried for a while, then cast
aside for others fresher and fairer. And now they came to cool rills
that flowed, softly murmuring, among mossy limestone, or blocks of red
or gray granite, wending their way beneath twisted roots and fallen
trees; and often Catharine lingered to watch the eddying dimples of
the clear water, to note the tiny bright fragments of quartz or
crystallized limestone that formed a shining pavement below the
stream. And often she paused to watch the angry movements of the red
squirrel, as, with feathery tail erect, and sharp scolding note, he
crossed their woodland path, and swiftly darting up the rugged bark of
some neighbouring pine or hemlock, bade the intruders on his quiet
haunts defiance; yet so bold in his indignation, he scarcely
condescended to ascend beyond their reach. The long-continued, hollow
tapping of the large red-headed woodpecker, or the singular
subterranean sound caused by the drumming of the partridge striking
his wings upon his breast to woo his gentle mate, and the soft
whispering note of the little tree-creeper, as it flitted from one
hemlock to another, collecting its food between the fissures of the
bark, were among the few sounds that broke the noontide stillness of
the woods; but to such sights and sounds the lively Catharine and her
cousin were not indifferent. And often they wondered that Hector
gravely pursued his onward way, and seldom lingered as they did to
mark the bright colours of the flowers, or the sparkling of the forest
rill, or the hurrying to and fro of the turkeys among the luxuriant
grass.

"What makes Hec so grave?" said Catharine to her companion, as they
seated themselves upon a mossy trunk to await his coming up; for they
had giddily chased each other till they had far outrun him.

"Hector, sweet coz, is thinking perhaps of how many bushels of corn or
wheat this land would grow if cleared, or he may be examining the soil
or the trees, or is looking for his stick of blue beech for your
broom, or the hickory for his axe handles, and never heeding such
nonsense as woodpeckers, and squirrels, and lilies, and moss, and
ferns; for Hector is not a giddy thing like his cousin Louis, or--"

"His sister Kate," interrupted Catharine merrily. "But when shall we
come to the Beaver Meadow?"

"Patience, ma belle, all in good time. Hark! was not that the ox-bell?
No; Hector whistling." And soon they heard the heavy stroke of his axe
ringing among the trees; for he had found the blue beech, and was
cutting it to leave on the path, that he might take it home on their
return: he had also marked some hickory of a nice size for his axe
handles, to bring home at some future time.

The children had walked several miles, and were not sorry to sit down
and rest till Hector joined them.

He was well pleased with his success, and declared he felt no fatigue.
"As soon as we reach the old Indian clearing, we shall find
strawberries," he said, "and a fresh cold spring, and then we will
have our dinner."

"Come, Hector,--come, Louis," said Catharine, jumping up, "I long to
be gathering the strawberries; and see, my flowers are faded, so I
will throw them away, and the basket shall be filled with fresh fruit
instead, and we must not forget petite Marie and sick Louise, or dear
Mathilde. Ah, how I wish she were here at this minute! But there is
the opening to the Beaver Meadow."

And the sunlight was seen streaming through the opening trees as they
approached the cleared space, which some called the "Indian clearing,"
but is now more generally known as the little Beaver Meadow. It was a
pleasant spot, green, and surrounded with light bowery trees and
flowering shrubs, of a different growth from those that belong to the
dense forest. Here the children found, on the hilly ground above, fine
ripe strawberries, the earliest they had seen that year, and soon all
weariness was forgotten while pursuing the delightful occupation of
gathering the tempting fruit; and when they had refreshed themselves,
and filled the basket with leaves and fruit, they slaked their thirst
at the stream which wound its way among the bushes. Catharine
neglected not to reach down flowery bunches of the fragrant
whitethorn, and the high-bush cranberry, then radiant with nodding
umbels of snowy blossoms, or to wreathe the handle of the little
basket with the graceful trailing runners of the lovely twin-flowered
plant, the Linnaea borealis, which she always said reminded her of the
twins Louise and Marie, her little cousins. And now the day began to
wear away, for they had lingered long in the little clearing; they had
wandered from the path by which they entered it, and had neglected, in
their eagerness to look for the strawberries, to notice any particular
mark by which they might regain it. Just when they began to think of
returning, Louis noticed a beaten path, where there seemed recent
prints of cattle hoofs on a soft spongy soil beyond the creek.

"Come, Hector," said he gaily, "this is lucky; we are on the
cattle-path; no fear but it will lead us directly home, and that by a
nearer track."

Hector was undecided about following it; he fancied it bent too much
towards the setting sun; but his cousin overruled his objection. "And
is not this our own creek?" he said. "I have often heard my father say
it had its rise somewhere about this old clearing."

Hector now thought Louis might be right, and they boldly followed the
path among the poplars, thorns, and bushes that clothed its banks,
surprised to see how open the ground became, and how swift and clear
the stream swept onward.

"Oh, this dear creek," cried the delighted Catharine, "how pretty it
is! I shall often follow its course after this; no doubt it has its
source from our own Cold Springs."

And so they cheerfully pursued their way, till the sun, sinking behind
the range of westerly hills, soon left them in gloom; but they
anxiously hurried forward when the stream wound its noisy way among
steep stony banks, clothed scantily with pines and a few scattered
silver-barked poplars. And now they became bewildered by two paths
leading in opposite directions; one upward among the rocky hills, the
other through the opening gorge of a deep ravine.

Here, overcome with fatigue, Catharine seated herself on a large block
of granite, near a great bushy pine that grew beside the path by the
ravine, unable to proceed; and Hector, with a grave and troubled
countenance, stood beside her, looking round with an air of great
perplexity. Louis, seating himself at Catharine's feet, surveyed the
deep gloomy valley before them, and sighed heavily. The conviction
forcibly struck him that they had mistaken the path altogether. The
very aspect of the country was different; the growth of the trees, the
flow of the stream, all indicated a change of soil and scene. Darkness
was fast drawing its impenetrable veil around them; a few stars were
stealing out, and gleaming down as if with pitying glance upon the
young wanderers, but they could not light up their pathway or point
their homeward track. The only sounds, save the lulling murmur of the
rippling stream below, were the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will,
from a gnarled oak that grew near them, and the harsh grating scream
of the night hawk, darting about in the higher regions of the air,
pursuing its noisy congeners, or swooping down with that peculiar
hollow rushing sound, as of a person blowing into some empty vessel,
when it seizes with wide-extended bill its insect prey.

Hector was the first to break the silence. "Cousin Louis, we were
wrong in following the course of the stream; I fear we shall never
find our way back tonight."

Louis made no reply; his sad and subdued air failed not to attract the
attention of his cousins.

"Why, Louis, how is this? you are not used to be cast down by
difficulties," said Hector, as he marked something like tears
glistening in the dark eyes of his cousin.

Louis's heart was full; he did not reply, but cast a troubled glance
upon the weary Catharine, who leaned heavily against the tree beneath
which she sat.

"It is not," resumed Hector, "that I mind passing a summer's night
under such a sky as this, and with such a dry grassy bed below me; but
I do not think it is good for Catharine to sleep on the bare ground in
the night dews,--and then they will be so anxious at home about our
absence."

Louis burst into tears, and sobbed out,--"And it is all my doing that
she came out with us; I deceived her, and my aunt will be angry and
much alarmed, for she did not know of her going at all. Dear
Catharine, good cousin Hector, pray forgive me!"

But Catharine was weeping too much to reply to his passionate
entreaties; and Hector, who never swerved from the truth, for which he
had almost a stern reverence, hardly repressed his indignation at what
appeared to him a most culpable act of deceit on the part of Louis.

The sight of her cousin's grief and self-abasement touched the tender
heart of Catharine; for she was kind and dove-like in her disposition,
and loved Louis, with all his faults. Had it not been for the painful
consciousness of the grief their unusual absence would occasion at
home, Catharine would have thought nothing of their present adventure;
but she could not endure the idea of her high-principled father taxing
her with deceiving her kind indulgent mother and him. It was this
humiliating thought which wounded the proud heart of Hector, causing
him to upbraid his cousin in somewhat harsh terms for his want of
truthfulness, and steeled him against the bitter grief that wrung the
heart of the penitent Louis, who, leaning his wet cheek on the
shoulder of Catharine, sobbed as if his heart would break, heedless of
her soothing words and affectionate endeavours to console him.

"Dear Hector," she said, turning her soft pleading eyes on the stern
face of her brother, "you must not be so very angry with poor Louis.
Remember it was to please me, and give me the enjoyment of a day of
liberty with you and himself in the woods, among the flowers and trees
and birds, that he committed this fault."

"Catharine, Louis told an untruth, and acted deceitfully. And look at
the consequences: we shall have forfeited our parents' confidence, and
may have some days of painful privation to endure before we regain our
home, if we ever do find our way back to Cold Springs," replied
Hector.

"It is the grief and anxiety our dear parents will endure this night,"
answered Catharine, "that distresses my mind; but," she added, in more
cheerful tones, "let us not despair, no doubt to-morrow we shall be
able to retrace our steps."

With the young there is ever a magical spell in that little word
_to-morrow_,--it is a point which they pursue as fast as it recedes
from them; sad indeed is the young heart that does not look forward
with hope to the future!

The cloud still hung on Hector's brow, till Catharine gaily exclaimed,
"Come, Hector! come Louis! we must not stand idling thus; we must
think of providing some shelter for the night: it is not good to rest
upon the bare ground exposed to the night dews.--See, here is a nice
hut, half made," pointing to a large upturned root which some fierce
whirlwind had hurled from the lofty bank into the gorge of the dark
glen.

"Now you must make haste, and lop off a few pine boughs, and stick
them into the ground, or even lean them against the roots of this old
oak, and there, you see, will be a capital house to shelter us. To
work, to work, you idle boys, or poor wee Katty must turn squaw and
build her own wigwam," she playfully added, taking up the axe which
rested against the feathery pine beneath which Hector was leaning.
Now, Catharine cared as little as her brother and cousin about passing
a warm summer's night under the shade of the forest trees, for she was
both hardy and healthy; but her woman's heart taught her that the
surest means of reconciling the cousins would be by mutually
interesting them in the same object,--and she was right. In
endeavouring to provide for the comfort of their dear companion, all
angry feelings were forgotten by Hector, while active employment
chased away Louis's melancholy.

Unlike the tall, straight, naked trunks of the pines of the forest,
those of the plains are adorned with branches often to the very
ground, varying in form and height, and often presenting most
picturesque groups, or rising singly among scattered groves of the
silver-barked poplar or graceful birch trees; the dark mossy greenness
of the stately pine contrasting finely with the light waving foliage
of its slender, graceful companions.

Hector, with his axe, soon lopped boughs from one of the adjacent
pines, which Louis sharpened with his knife and, with Catharine's
assistance, drove into the ground, arranging them in such a way as to
make the upturned oak, with its roots and the earth which adhered to
them, form the back part of the hut, which when completed formed by no
means a contemptible shelter. Catharine then cut fern and deer grass
with Louis's _couteau de chasse_, which he always carried in a sheath
at his girdle, and spread two beds,--one, parted off by dry boughs and
bark, for herself, in the interior of the wigwam; and one for her
brother and cousin, nearer the entrance. When all was finished to her
satisfaction she called the two boys, and, according to the custom of
her parents, joined them in the lifting up of their hands as an
evening sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Nor were these
simple-hearted children backward in imploring help and protection from
the Most High. They earnestly prayed that no dangerous creature might
come near to molest them during the hours of darkness and
helplessness, no evil spirit visit them, no unholy or wicked thoughts
intrude into their minds; but that holy angels and heavenly thoughts
might hover over them, and fill their hearts with the peace of God
which passeth all understanding. And the prayer of the poor wanderers
was heard; they slept in peace, unharmed, in the vast solitude. So
passed their first night on the Plains.




CHAPTER II

"Fear not: ye are of more value than many sparrows."--_St. Luke_.


The sun had risen in all the splendour of a Canadian summer morning
when the sleepers arose from their leafy beds. In spite of the novelty
of their situation, they had slept as soundly and tranquilly as if
they had been under the protecting care of their beloved parents, on
their little palliasses of corn straw; but they had been cared for by
Him who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, and they waked full of
youthful hope, and in fulness of faith in His mercy into whose hands
they had commended their souls and bodies before they retired to rest.

While the children slept in peace and safety, what terrors had filled
the minds of their distracted parents! what a night of anguish and
sorrow had they passed!

When night had closed in without bringing back the absent children,
the two fathers, lighting torches of fat pine, went forth in search of
the wanderers. How often did they raise their voices in hopes their
loud halloos might reach the hearing of the lost ones! How often did
they check their hurried steps to listen for some replying call! But
the sighing breeze in the pine tops, or sudden rustling of the leaves
caused by the flight of the birds startled by the unusual glare of the
torches, and the echoes of their own voices, were the only sounds that
met their anxious ears. At daybreak they returned, sad and dispirited,
to their homes, to snatch a morsel of food, endeavour to cheer the
drooping hearts of the weeping mothers, and hurry off, taking
different directions. But, unfortunately, they had little clue to the
route which Hector and Louis had taken, there being many cattle-paths
through the woods. Louis's want of truthfulness had caused this
uncertainty, as he had left no intimation of the path he purposed
taking when he quitted his mother's house. He had merely said he was
going with Hector in search of the cattle, giving no hint of his
intention of asking Catharine to accompany them; he had but told his
sick sister that he would bring home strawberries and flowers, and
that he would soon return. Alas! poor, thoughtless Louis! how little
did you think of the web of woe you were then weaving for yourself,
and all those to whom you and your companions were so dear! Children,
think twice ere ye deceive once.

Catharine's absence would have been quite unaccountable but for the
testimony of Duncan and Kenneth, who had received her sisterly
caresses before she joined Hector at the barn; and much her mother
marvelled what could have induced her good, dutiful Catharine to have
left her work and forsaken her household duties to go rambling away
with the boys, for she never left the house when her mother was absent
from it without her express permission. And now she was gone,--lost to
them perhaps for ever. There stood the wheel she had been turning;
there hung the untwisted hanks of yarn, her morning task; and there
they remained week after week, and month after month, untouched,--a
melancholy memorial to the hearts of the bereaved parents of their
beloved.

It were indeed a fruitless task to follow the agonized fathers in
their vain search for their children, or to paint the bitter anguish
that filled their hearts as day passed after day, and still no tidings
of the lost ones. As hope faded, a deep and settled gloom stole over
the sorrowing parents, and reigned throughout the once cheerful and
gladsome homes. At the end of a week the only idea that remained was,
that one of these three casualties had befallen the lost
children,--death, a lingering death by famine; death, cruel and
horrible, by wolves or bears; or, yet more terrible, with tortures by
the hands of the dreaded Indians, who occasionally held their councils
and hunting-parties on the hills about the Rice Lake, which was known
only by the elder Perron as the scene of many bloody encounters
between the rival tribes of the Mohawks and Chippewas. Its localities
were scarcely ever visited by the settlers, lest haply they should
fall into the hands of the bloody Mohawks, whose merciless disposition
made them in those days a by-word even to the less cruel Chippewas and
other Indian nations.

It was not in the direction of the Rice Lake that Maxwell and his
brother-in-law sought their lost children; and even if they had done
so, among the deep glens and hill passes of what is now commonly
called the Plains, they would have stood little chance of discovering
the poor wanderers. After many days of fatigue of body and distress of
mind, the sorrowing parents sadly relinquished the search as utterly
hopeless, and mourned in bitterness of spirit over the disastrous fate
of their first-born and beloved children. "There was a voice of woe,
and lamentation, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children,
and refusing to be comforted, because they were not."

The miserable uncertainty that involved the fate of the lost ones was
an aggravation to the sufferings of the mourners. Could they but have
been certified of the manner of their deaths, they fancied they should
be more contented; but, alas! this fearful satisfaction was withheld

  "Oh, were their tale of sorrow known,
    'Twere something to the breaking heart;
   The pangs of doubt would then be gone,
     And fancy's endless dreams depart."

But let us quit the now mournful settlement of Cold Springs, and see
how it really fared with the young wanderers.

When they awoke, the valley was filled with a white creamy mist, that
arose from the bed of the stream (now known as Cold Creek), and gave
an indistinctness to the whole landscape, investing it with an
appearance perfectly different to that which it had worn by the
bright, clear light of the moon. No trace of their footsteps remained
to guide them in retracing their path, so hard and dry was the stony
ground that it left no impression on its surface. It was with some
difficulty they found the creek, which was concealed from sight by a
lofty screen of gigantic hawthorns, high-bush cranberries, poplars,
and birch trees. The hawthorn was in blossom, and gave out a sweet
perfume, not less fragrant than the "May," which makes the lanes and
hedgerows of "merrie old England" so sweet and fair in May and June.

At length their path began to grow more difficult. A tangled mass of
cedars, balsams, birch, black ash, alders, and _tamarack_ (Indian
name for the larch), with a dense thicket of bushes and shrubs, such
as love the cool, damp soil of marshy ground, warned our travellers
that they must quit the banks of the friendly stream, or they might
become entangled in a trackless swamp. Having taken copious and
refreshing draughts from the bright waters, and bathed their hands and
faces, they ascended the grassy bank, and, again descending, found
themselves in one of those long valleys, enclosed between lofty
sloping banks, clothed with shrubs and oaks, with here and there a
stately pine. Through this second valley they pursued their way, till,
emerging into a wider space, they came among those singularly
picturesque groups of rounded gravel-hills, where the Cold Creek once
more met their view, winding its way towards a grove of evergreens,
where it was again lost to the eye.

This lovely spot was known as Sackville's Mill-dike. The hand of man
had curbed the free course of the wild forest stream, and made it
subservient to his will, but could not destroy the natural beauties of
the scene.

Fearing to entangle themselves in the swamp, they kept the hilly
ground, winding their way up to the summit of the lofty ridge of the
oak hills, the highest ground they had yet attained; and here it was
that the silver waters of the Rice Lake in all its beauty burst upon
the eyes of the wondering and delighted travellers. There it lay, a
sheet of liquid silver, just emerging from the blue veil of mist that
hung upon its surface and concealed its wooded shores on either side.
All feeling of dread, and doubt, and danger was lost for the time in
one rapturous glow of admiration at the scene so unexpected and so
beautiful as that which they now gazed upon from the elevation they
had gained. From this ridge they looked down the lake, and the eye
could take in an extent of many miles, with its verdant wooded
islands, which stole into view one by one as the rays of the morning
sun drew up the moving curtain of mist that enveloped them; and soon
both northern and southern shores became distinctly visible, with all
their bays, and capes, and swelling oak and pine crowned hills.

And now arose the question, "Where are we? What lake is this? Can it
be the Ontario, or is it the Rice Lake? Can yonder shores be those of
the Americans, or are they the hunting-grounds of the dreaded
Indians?" Hector remembered having often heard his father say that the
Ontario was like an inland sea, and the opposite shores not visible
unless in some remarkable state of the atmosphere, when they had been
occasionally discerned by the naked eye; while here they could
distinctly see objects on the other side, the peculiar growth of the
trees, and even flights of wild fowl winging their way among the rice
and low bushes on its margin. The breadth of the lake from shore to
shore could not, they thought, exceed three or four miles; while its
length, in an easterly direction, seemed far greater,--beyond what
the eye could take in. [Footnote: The length of the Rice Lake, from
its head-waters near Black's Landing to the mouth of the Trent, is
said to be twenty-five miles; its breadth, from north to south, varies
from three to six.]

They now quitted the lofty ridge, and bent their steps towards the
lake. Wearied with their walk, they seated themselves beneath the
shade of a beautiful feathery pine, on a high promontory that
commanded a magnificent view down the lake.

"How pleasant it would be to have a house on this delightful bank,
overlooking the lake!" said Louis. "Only think of the fish we could
take, and the ducks and wild fowl we could shoot; and it would be no
very hard matter to hollow out a log canoe, such a one as I have heard
my father say he has rowed in across many a lake and broad river
below, when he was lumbering."

"Yes, it would, indeed, be a pleasant spot to live upon," said Hector,
"though I am not quite sure that the land is as good just here as it
is at Cold Springs; but all those flats and rich valleys would make
fine pastures, and produce plenty of grain, too, if cultivated."

"You always look to the main chance, Hec," said Louis, laughing;
"well, it was worth a few hours' walking this morning to look upon so
lovely a sheet of water as this. I would spend two nights in a
wigwam,--would not you, ma belle?--to enjoy such a sight."

"Yes, Louis," replied his cousin, hesitating as she spoke; "it is very
pretty, and I did not mind sleeping in the little hut; but then I
cannot enjoy myself as much as I should have done had my father and
mother been aware of my intention of accompanying you. Ah, my dear,
dear parents!" she added, as the thought of the anguish the absence of
her companions and herself would cause at home came over her. "How I
wish I had remained at home! Selfish Catharine! foolish, idle girl!"

Poor Louis was overwhelmed with grief at the sight of his cousin's
tears; and as the kind-hearted but thoughtless boy bent over her to
soothe and console her, his own tears fell upon the fair locks of the
weeping girl, and dropped on the hand he held between his own.

"If you cry thus, cousin," he whispered, "you will break poor Louis's
heart, already sore enough with thinking of his foolish conduct."

"Be not cast down, Catharine," said her brother cheeringly; "we may
not be so far from home as you think. As soon as you are rested, we
will set out again, and we may find something to eat; there must be
strawberries on these sunny banks."

Catharine soon yielded to the voice of her brother, and drying her
eyes, proceeded to descend the sides of the steep valley that lay to
one side of the high ground where they had been sitting.

Suddenly darting down the bank, she exclaimed, "Come, Hector! come,
Louis! here indeed is provision to keep us from starving;" for her eye
had caught the bright red strawberries among the flowers and herbage
on the slope--large ripe strawberries, the very finest she had ever
seen.

"There is, indeed, ma belle," said Louis, stooping as he spoke to
gather up, not the fruit, but a dozen fresh partridge's eggs from the
inner shade of a thick tuft of grass and herbs that grew beside a
fallen tree. Catharine's voice and sudden movements had startled the
ruffed grouse [Footnote: The Canadian partridge is a species of
grouse, larger than the English or French partridge. We refer our
young readers to the finely arranged specimens in the British Museum
(open to the public), where they may discover "Louis's partridge."]
from her nest, and the eggs were soon transferred to Louis's straw
hat, while a stone flung by the steady hand of Hector stunned the
parent bird. The boys laughed exultingly as they displayed their
prizes to the astonished Catharine, who, in spite of hunger, could not
help regretting the death of the mother bird. Girls and women rarely
sympathize with men and boys in their field sports, and Hector laughed
at his sister's doleful looks as he handed over the bird to her.

"It was a lucky chance," said he, "and the stone was well aimed, but
it is not the first partridge that I have killed in this way. They are
so stupid you may even run them down at times; I hope to get another
before the day is over.

"Well, there is no fear of starving to-day, at all events," he added,
as he inspected the contents of his cousin's hat; "twelve nice fresh
eggs, a bird, and plenty of fruit."

"But how shall we cook the bird and the eggs? We have no means of
getting a fire made," said Catharine.

"As to the eggs," said Louis, "we can eat them raw; it is not for
hungry wanderers like us to be over-nice about our food."

"They would satisfy us much better were they boiled, or roasted in the
ashes," observed Hector.

"True. Well, a fire, I think, can be got with a little trouble."

"But how?" asked Hector.

"Oh, there are many ways, but the readiest would be a flint with the
help of my knife."

"A flint?"

"Yes, if we could get one: but I see nothing but granite, which
crumbles and shivers when struck--we could not get a spark. However, I
think it's very likely that one of the round pebbles I see on the
beach yonder may be found hard enough for the purpose."

To the shore they bent their steps as soon as the little basket had
been well filled with strawberries; and descending the precipitous
bank, fringed with young saplings; birch, ash, and poplars, they
quickly found themselves beside the bright waters of the lake. A flint
was soon found among the water-worn stones that lay thickly strewn
upon the shore, and a handful of dry sedge, almost as inflammable as
tinder, was collected without trouble: though Louis, with the
recklessness of his nature, had coolly proposed to tear a strip from
his cousin's apron as a substitute for tinder,--a proposal that
somewhat raised the indignation of the tidy Catharine, whose ideas of
economy and neatness were greatly outraged, especially as she had no
sewing implements to assist in mending the rent. Louis thought nothing
of that; it was a part of his character to think only of the present,
little of the past, and to let the future provide for itself. Such was
Louis's great failing, which had proved a fruitful source of trouble
both to himself and others. In this respect he bore a striking
contrast to his more cautious companion, who possessed much of the
gravity of his father. Hector was as heedful and steady in his
decisions as Louis was rash and impetuous.

After many futile attempts, and some skin knocked off their knuckles
through awkward handling of the knife and flint, a good fire was at
last kindled, as there was no lack of dry wood on the shore. Catharine
then triumphantly produced her tin pot, and the eggs were boiled,
greatly to the satisfaction of all parties, who were by this time
sufficiently hungry, having eaten nothing since the previous evening
more substantial than the strawberries they had taken during the time
they were gathering them in the morning.

Catharine had selected a pretty, cool, shady recess, a natural bower,
under the overhanging growth of [Illustration: THE FIRST BREAKFAST.]
cedars, poplars, and birch, which were wreathed together by the
flexible branches of the wild grape vine and bitter-sweet, which
climbed to a height of fifteen feet [Footnote: _Celastrus
scandens_,--bitter-sweet or woody nightshade. This plant, like the
red-berried bryony of England, is highly ornamental. It possesses
powerful properties as a medicine, and is in high reputation among the
Indians.] among the branches of the trees, which it covered as with a
mantle. A pure spring of cold, delicious water welled out from beneath
the twisted roots of an old hoary-barked cedar, and found its way
among the shingle on the beach to the lake, a humble but constant
tributary to its waters. Some large blocks of water-worn stone formed
convenient seats and a natural table, on which the little maiden
arranged the forest fare; and never was a meal made with greater
appetite or taken with more thankfulness than that which our wanderers
ate that morning. The eggs (part of which they reserved for another
time) were declared to be better than those that were daily produced
from the little hen-house at Cold Springs. The strawberries, set out
in little pottles made with the shining leaves of the oak, ingeniously
pinned together by Catharine with the long spurs of the hawthorn, were
voted delicious, and the pure water most refreshing, that they drank,
for lack of better cups, from a large mussel-shell which Catharine had
picked up among the weeds and pebbles on the beach.

Many children would have wandered about weeping and disconsolate,
lamenting their sad fate, or have imbittered the time by useless
repining, or, perhaps, by venting their uneasiness in reviling the
principal author of their calamity--poor, thoughtless Louis; but such
were not the dispositions of our young Canadians. Early accustomed to
the hardships incidental to the lives of the settlers in the bush,
these young people had learned to bear with patience and cheerfulness
privations that would have crushed the spirits of children more
delicately nurtured. They had known every degree of hunger and
nakedness: during the first few years of their lives they had often
been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs,
wild fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to
decoy, and to shoot. Thus Louis and Hector had early been initiated
into the mysteries of the chase. They could make dead-falls, and pits,
and traps, and snares; they were as expert as Indians in the use of
the bow; they could pitch a stone or fling a wooden dart at partridge,
hare, and squirrel with almost unerring aim; and were as swift of foot
as young fawns. Now it was that they learned to value in its fullest
extent this useful and practical knowledge, which enabled them to face
with fortitude the privations of a life so precarious as that to which
they were now exposed.

It was one of the elder Maxwell's maxims,--Never, let difficulties
overcome you, but rather strive to conquer them; let the head direct
the hand, and the hand, like a well-disciplined soldier, obey the head
as chief. When his children expressed any doubts of not being able to
accomplish any work they had begun, he would say, "Have you not hands,
have you not a head, have you not eyes to see, and reason to guide
you? As for impossibilities, they do not belong to the trade of a
soldier,--he dare not see them." Thus were energy and perseverance
early instilled into the minds of his children. They were now called
upon to give practical proofs of the precepts that had been taught
them in childhood. Hector trusted to his axe, and Louis to his
_couteau de chasse_ and pocket-knife,--the latter was a present from
an old forest friend of his father's, who had visited them the
previous winter, and which, by good luck, Louis had in his pocket,--a
capacious pouch, in which were stored many precious things, such as
coils of twine and string, strips of leather, with odds and ends of
various kinds--nails, bits of iron, leather, and such miscellaneous
articles as find their way most mysteriously into boys' pockets in
general, and Louis Perron's in particular, who was a wonderful
collector of such small matters.

The children were not easily daunted by the prospect of passing a few
days abroad on so charming a spot, and at such a lovely season, where
fruits were so abundant; and when they had finished their morning
meal, so providentially placed within their reach, they gratefully
acknowledged the mercy of God in this thing.

Having refreshed themselves by bathing their hands and faces in the
lake, they cheerfully renewed their wanderings, though something loath
to leave the cool shade and the spring for an untrodden path among the
hills and deep ravines that furrow the shores of the Rice Lake in so
remarkable a manner; and often did our weary wanderers pause to look
upon the wild glens and precipitous hills, where the fawn and the shy
deer found safe retreats, unharmed by the rifle of the hunter, where
the osprey and white-headed eagle built their nests, unheeded and
unharmed. Twice that day, misled by following the track of the deer,
had they returned to the samespot,--a deep and lovely glen, which had
once been a watercourse, but was now a green and shady valley. This
they named the Valley of the Rock, from a remarkable block of red
granite that occupied a central position in the narrow defile; and
here they prepared to pass their second night on the Plains. A few
boughs cut down and interlaced with the shrubs round a small space
cleared with Hector's axe, formed shelter, and leaves and grass,
strewed on the ground, formed a bed--though not so smooth, perhaps, as
the bark and cedar boughs that the Indians spread within their summer
wigwams for carpets and couches, or the fresh heather that the
Highlanders gather on the wild Scottish hills.

While Hector and Louis were preparing the sleeping chamber, Catharine
busied herself in preparing the partridge for their supper. Having
collected some thin peelings from the rugged bark of a birch tree that
grew on the side of the steep bank to which she gave the appropriate
name of the "Birken Shaw," she dried it in her bosom, and then beat it
fine upon a big stone, till it resembled the finest white paper. This
proved excellent tinder, the aromatic oil contained in the bark of the
birch being highly inflammable. Hector had prudently retained the
flint that they had used in the morning, and a fire was now lighted in
front of the rocky stone, and a forked stick, stuck in the ground, and
bent over the coals, served as a spit, on which, gipsy-fashion, the
partridge was suspended,--a scanty meal, but thankfully partaken of,
though they knew not how they should breakfast next morning. The
children felt they were pensioners on God's providence not less than
the wild denizens of the wilderness around them.

When Hector--who by nature was less sanguine than his sister or
cousin--expressed some anxiety for their provisions for the morrow,
Catharine, who had early listened with trusting piety of heart to the
teaching of her father, when he read portions from the holy Word of
God, gently laid her hand upon her brother's head, which rested on her
knees, as he sat upon the grass beside her, and said, in a low and
earnest tone, "'Consider the fowls of the air: they sow not, neither
do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they?' Surely, my brother, God
careth for us as much as for the wild creatures that have no sense to
praise and glorify his holy name. God cares for the creatures he has
made, and supplies them with knowledge where they shall find food when
they hunger and thirst. So I have heard my father say; and surely our
father knows, for is he not a wise man, Hector?"

"I remember," said Louis thoughtfully, "hearing my mother repeat the
words of a good old man she knew when she lived in Quebec. 'When you
are in trouble, Mathilde,' he used to say to her, 'kneel down and ask
God's help, nothing doubting but that he has the power as well as the
will to serve you, if it be for your good; for he is able to bring all
things to pass. It is our own want of faith that prevents our prayers
from being heard.' And, truly, I think the wise old man was right," he
added.

It was strange to hear grave words like these from the lips of the
giddy Louis. Possibly they had the greater weight on that account. And
Hector, looking up with a serious air, replied, "Your mother's friend
was a good man, Louis. Our want of trust in God's power must displease
him. And when we think of all the great and glorious things he has
made,--that blue sky, those sparkling stars, the beautiful moon that
is now shining down upon us, and the hills and waters, the mighty
forest, and little creeping plants and flowers that grow at our
feet,--it must, indeed, seem foolish in his eyes that we should doubt
his power to help us, who not only made all these things but ourselves
also."

"True," said Catharine; "but then, Hector, we are not as God made us;
for the wicked one cast bad seed in the field where God had sown the
good."

"Let us, however, consider what we shall do for food; for you know God
helps those that help themselves," said Louis. "Let us consider a
little. There must be plenty of fish in the lake, both small and
great."

"But how are we to get them out of it?" rejoined Catharine. "I doubt
the fish will swim at their ease there, while we go hungry."

"Do not interrupt me, ma chere. Then, we see the track of deer, and
the holes of the wood-chuck; we hear the cry of squirrels and
chitmunks, and there are plenty of partridges, and ducks, and quails,
and snipes;--of course, we have to contrive some way to kill them.
Fruits there are in abundance, and plenty of nuts of different kinds.
At present we have plenty of fine strawberries, and huckleberries will
be ripe soon in profusion, and bilberries too, and you know how
pleasant they are; as for raspberries, I see none; but by-and-by there
will be May-apples (_Podophyllum peltatum_)--I see great quantities
of them in the low grounds; grapes, high-bush cranberries, haws as
large as cherries, and sweet too, squaw-berries, wild-plums,
choke-cherries, and bird-cherries. As to sweet acorns, there will be
bushels and bushels of them for the roasting, as good as chestnuts, to
my taste, and butter-nuts, and hickory-nuts with many other good
things." And here Louis stopped for want of breath to continue his
catalogue of forest dainties.

"Yes, and there are bears, and wolves, and raccoons too, that will eat
us for want of better food," interrupted Hector slyly. "Nay, Katty, do
not shudder, as if you were already in the clutches of a big bear.
Neither bear nor wolf shall make mincemeat of thee, my girl, while
Louis and thy brother are near to wield an axe or a knife in thy
defence."

"Nor catamount spring upon thee, ma belle cousine," added Louis
gallantly, "while thy bold cousin Louis can scare him away."

"Well, now that we know our resources, the next thing is to consider
how we are to obtain them, my dears," said Catharine. "For fishing,
you know, we must have a hook and line, a rod, or a net. Now, where
are these to be met with?"

Louis nodded his head sagaciously. "The line I think I can provide;
the hook is more difficult, but I do not despair even of that. As to
the rod, it can be cut from any slender sapling on the shore. A net,
ma chere, I could make with very little trouble, if I had but a piece
of cloth to sew over a hoop."

Catharine laughed. "You are very ingenious, no doubt, Monsieur Louis;
but where are you to get the cloth and the hoop, and the means of
sewing it on?"

Louis took up the corner of his cousin's apron with a provoking look.

"My apron, sir, is not to be appropriated for any such purpose. You
seem to covet it for everything."

"Indeed, ma petite, I think it very unbecoming and very ugly, and
never could see any good reason why you, and mamma, and Mathilde
should wear such frightful things."

"It is to keep our gowns clean, Louis, when we are milking, and
scrubbing, and doing all sorts of household duties," said Catharine.

"Well, ma belle, you have neither cows to milk nor house to clean,"
replied the annoying boy; "so there can be little want of the apron. I
could turn it to fifty useful purposes."

"Pooh, nonsense," said Hector impatiently; "let the child alone, and
do not tease her about her apron."

"Well, then, there is another good thing I did not think of
before--water mussels. I have heard my father and old Jacob the
lumberer say that, roasted in their shells in the ashes, with a
seasoning of salt and pepper, they are good eating when nothing better
is to be got."

"No doubt, if the seasoning can be procured," said Hector; "but, alas
for the salt and the pepper!"

"Well, we can eat them with the best of all sauces--hunger. And then,
no doubt, there are crayfish in the gravel under the stones; but we
must not mind a pinch to our fingers in taking them."

"To-morrow, then, let us breakfast on fish," said Hector. "You and I
will try our luck, while Kate gathers strawberries; and if our line
should break, we can easily cut those long locks from Catharine's head
and twist them into lines." And Hector laid his hands upon the long
fair hair that hung in shining curls about his sister's neck.

"Cut my curls! This is even worse than cousin Louis's proposal of
making tinder and fishing-nets of my apron," said Catharine, shaking
back the bright tresses which, escaping from the snood that bound
them, fell in golden waves over her shoulders.

"In truth, Hec, it were a sin and a shame to cut her pretty curls,
that become her so well," said Louis. "But we have no scissors, ma
belle, so you need fear no injury to your precious locks."

"For the matter of that, Louis, we could cut them with your _couteau
de chaise_. I could tell you a story that my father told me, not long
since, of Charles Stuart, the second king of that name in England. You
know he was the granduncle of the young chevalier, Charles Edward,
that my father talks of, and loves so much."

"I know all about him," said Catharine, nodding sagaciously; "let us
hear the story of his granduncle. But I should like to know what my
hair and Louis's knife can have to do with King Charles."

"Wait a bit, Kate, and you shall hear--that is, if you have patience,"
said her brother. "Well then, you must know, that after some great
battle, the name of which I forget, [Footnote: Battle of Worcester] in
which the king and his handful of brave soldiers were defeated by the
forces of the Parliament (the Roundheads, as they were called), the
poor young king was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, a
large price was set on his head, to be given to any traitor who should
slay him or bring him prisoner to Oliver Cromwell. He was obliged to
dress himself in all sorts of queer clothes, and hide in all manner of
strange, out-of-the-way places, and keep company with rude and humble
men, the better to hide his real rank from the cruel enemies that
sought his life. Once he hid along with a gallant gentleman,
[Footnote: Colonel Careless.] one of his own brave officers, in the
branches of a great oak. Once he was hid in a mill; and another time
he was in the house of one Pendril, a woodman. The soldiers of the
Parliament, who were always prowling about, and popping in unawares
wherever they suspected the poor king to be hidden, were at one time
in the very room where he was standing beside the fire."

"Oh!" exclaimed Catharine, "that was frightful. And did they take him
prisoner?"

"No; for the wise woodman and his brothers, fearing lest the soldiers
should discover that he was a cavalier and a gentleman, by the long
curls that the king's men all wore in those days, and called
_lovelocks_, begged of his majesty to let his hair be cropped close to
his head."

"That was very hard, to lose his nice curls."

"I dare say the young king thought so too; but it was better to lose
his hair than his head. So, I suppose, the men told him; for he
suffered them to cut it all close to his head, laying down his head on
a rough deal table, or a chopping-block, while his faithful friends
with a large knife trimmed off the curls."

"I wonder if the young king thought at that minute of his poor father,
who, you know, was forced by wicked men to lay down his head upon a
block to have it cut from his shoulders, because Cromwell, and others
as hard-hearted as himself, willed that he should die."

"Poor king!" said Catharine, sighing; "I see that it is better to be
poor children, wandering on these plains under God's own care, than to
be kings and princes at the mercy of bad and sinful men."

"Who told your father all these things, Hec?" said Louis.

"It was the son of his brave colonel, who knew a great deal about the
history of the Stuart kings, for our colonel had been with Prince
Charles, the young chevalier, and fought by his side when he was in
Scotland. He loved him dearly, and after the battle of Culloden, where
the prince lost all, and was driven from place to place, and had not
where to lay his head, he went abroad in hopes of better times. But
those times did not come for the poor prince; and our colonel, after a
while, through the friendship of General Wolfe, got a commission in
the army that was embarking for Quebec, and at last commanded the
regiment to which my father belonged. He was a kind man, and my father
loved both him and his son, and grieved not a little when he parted
from him."

"Well," said-Catharine, "as you have told me such a nice story, Mister
Hec, I shall forgive the affront about my curls."

"Well, then, to-morrow we are to try our luck at fishing, and if we
fail, we will make us bows and arrows to kill deer or small game; I
fancy we shall not be over-particular as to its quality. Why should
not we be able to find subsistence as well as the wild Indians?"

"True," said Hector; "the wild men of the wilderness, and the animals
and birds, all are fed by the things that He provideth; then wherefore
should His white children fear?"

"I have often heard my father tell of the privations of the lumberers,
when they have fallen short of provisions, and of the contrivances of
himself and old Jacob Morelle when they were lost for several days,
nay, weeks I believe it was. Like the Indians, they made themselves
bows and arrows, using the sinews of the deer, or fresh thongs of
leather, for bow-strings; and when they could not get game to eat,
they boiled the inner bark of the slippery elm to jelly, or birch
bark, and drank the sap of the sugar maple when they could get no
water but melted snow only, which is unwholesome: at last they even
boiled their own moccasins."

"Indeed, Louis, that must have been a very unsavoury dish," said
Catharine.

"That old buck-skin vest would have made a famous pot of soup of
itself," added Hector, "or the deer-skin hunting shirt."

"They might have been reduced even to that," said Louis, laughing,
"but for the good fortune that befell them in the way of a
half-roasted bear."

"Nonsense, Cousin Louis; bears do not run about ready roasted in the
forest, like the lambs in the old nursery tale."

"Kate, this was a fact; at least it was told as one by old Jacob, and
my father did not deny it. Shall I tell you about it? After passing
several hungry days, with no better food to keep them alive than the
scrapings of the inner bark of the poplars and elms, which was not
very substantial for hearty men, they encamped one night in a thick
dark swamp,--not the sort of place they would have chosen, but they
could not help themselves, having been enticed into it by the tracks
of a deer or a moose,--and night came upon them unawares, so they set
to work to kindle a fire with spunk, and a flint and knife; rifle they
had none, or maybe they would have had game to eat.

"Old Jacob fixed upon a huge hollow pine that lay across their path,
against which he soon piled a glorious heap of boughs and arms of
trees, and whatever wood he could collect, and lighted up a fine fire.
The wood was dry pine and cedar and birch, and it blazed away, and
crackled and burned like a pine-torch. By-and-by they heard a most
awful growling close to them. 'That's a big bear, as I live,' said old
Jacob, looking all about, thinking to see one come out from the thick
bush. But Bruin was nearer to him than he thought; for presently a
great black bear burst out from the butt-end of the great burning log,
and made towards Jacob. Just then the wind blew the flame outward, and
it caught the bear's thick coat, and he was all in a blaze in a
moment. No doubt the heat of the fire had penetrated to the hollow of
the log, where he had lain himself snugly up for the winter, and
wakened him. Jacob seeing the huge black brute all in a flame of fire,
roared with fright; the bear roared with pain and rage; and my father
roared with laughing to see Jacob's terror. But he did not let the
bear laugh at him, for he seized a thick pole that he had used for
closing in the brands and logs, and soon demolished the bear, who was
so blinded with the fire and smoke that he made no fight; and they
feasted on roast bear's flesh for many days, and got a capital skin to
cover them beside."

"What, Louis! after the fur was all singed?" said Catharine.

"Kate, you are too particular," said Louis; "a story never loses, you
know."

Hector laughed heartily at the adventure, and enjoyed the dilemma of
the bear in his winter quarters; but Catharine was somewhat shocked at
the levity displayed by her cousin and brother when recounting the
terror of old Jacob and the sufferings of the poor bear.

"You boys are always so unfeeling," she said gravely.

"Indeed, Kate," said her brother, "the day may come when the sight of
a good piece of roast bear's flesh will be no unwelcome sight. If we
do not find our way back to Cold Springs before the winter sets in, we
may be reduced to as bad a state as poor Jacob and my uncle were in
the pine swamps on the banks of the St. John."

"Ah!" said Catharine, trembling, "that would be too bad to happen."

"Courage, ma belle; let us not despair for the morrow. Let us see what
tomorrow will do for us; meantime, we will not neglect the blessings
we still possess. See, our partridge is ready; let us eat our supper,
and be thankful; and for grace let us say, 'Sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof.'"

Long exposure to the air had sharpened their appetites. The hungry
wanderers needed no further invitation. The scanty meal, equally
divided, was soon despatched.

It is a common saying, but excellent to be remembered by any wanderers
in our forest wilds, that those who travel by the sun travel in a
circle, and usually find themselves at night in the same place from
whence they started in the morning; so it was with our wanderers. At
sunset they found themselves once more in the ravine, beside the big
stone, in which they had rested at noon. They had imagined themselves
miles distant from it: they were grievously disappointed. They had
encouraged each other with the confident hope that they were drawing
near to the end of their bewildering journey: they were as far from
their home as ever, without the slightest clue to guide them to the
right path. Despair is not a feeling which takes deep root in the
youthful breast. The young are always hopeful; so confident in their
own wisdom and skill in averting or conquering danger; so trusting; so
willing to believe that there is a peculiar Providence watching over
them. Poor children! they had indeed need of such a belief to
strengthen their minds and encourage them to fresh exertions, for new
trials were at hand.

The broad moon had already flooded the recesses of the glen with
light, and all looked fresh and lovely in the dew which glittered on
tree and leaf, on herb and flower. Catharine, who, though weary with
her fatiguing wanderings, could not sleep, left the little hut of
boughs her companions had put up near the granite rock in the valley
for her accommodation, and ascended the western bank, where the last
jutting spur of its steep side formed a lofty cliff-like promontory,
at the extreme verge of which the roots of one tall spreading oak
formed a most inviting seat, from whence the traveller looked down
into a level tract, which stretched away to the edge of the lake.

This flat had been the estuary of the mountain stream which had once
rushed down between the hills, forming a narrow gorge; but now all was
changed: the waters had ceased to flow, the granite bed was overgrown
and carpeted with deer-grass and flowers of many hues, wild fruits and
bushes, below, while majestic oaks and pines towered above. A sea of
glittering foliage lay beneath Catharine's feet; in the distance the
eye of the young girl rested on a belt of shining waters, which girt
in the shores like a silver zone; beyond, yet more remote to the
northward, stretched the illimitable forest.

Never had Catharine looked upon a scene so still or so fair to the
eye; a holy calm seemed to shed its influence over her young mind, and
peaceful tears stole down her cheeks. Not a sound was there abroad,
scarcely a leaf stirred; she could have stayed for hours there gazing
on the calm beauty of nature, and communing with her own heart, when
suddenly a stirring rustling sound caught her ear; it came from a
hollow channel on one side of the promontory, which was thickly
overgrown with the shrubby dogwood, wild roses, and bilberry bushes.
Imagine the terror which seized the poor girl on perceiving the head
of a black elk breaking through the covert of the bushes. With a
scream and a bound, which the most deadly fear alone could have
inspired, Catharine sprung from the supporting trunk of the oak, and
dashed down the precipitous side of the ravine; now clinging to the
bending sprays of the flexile dogwood, now to some fragile birch or
poplar--now trusting to the yielding heads of the sweet-scented
ceanothus, or filling her hands with sharp thorns from the roses that
clothed the bank,--flowers, grass, all were alike clutched at in her
rapid and fearful descent.

A loose fragment of granite on which she had unwittingly placed her
foot rolled from under her; unable to regain her balance she fell
forwards, and was precipitated through the bushes into the ravine
below, conscious only of unspeakable terror and an agonizing pain in
one of her ankles which rendered her quite powerless. The noise of the
stones she had dislodged in her fall, and her piteous cries, brought
Louis and Hector to her side, and they bore her in their arms to the
hut of boughs, and laid her down upon her bed of leaves and grass and
young pine boughs. When Catharine was able to speak, she related to
Louis and Hector the cause of her fright. She was sure it must have
been a wolf by his sharp teeth, long jaws, and grizzly coat. The last
glance she had had of him had filled her with terror; he was standing
on a fallen tree, with his eyes fixed upon her. She could tell them no
more that happened; she never felt the ground she was on, so great was
her fright.

Hector was half disposed to scold his sister for rambling over the
hills alone; but Louis was full of tender compassion for _la belle
cousine_, and would not suffer her to be chidden. Fortunately, no
bones had been fractured, though the sinews of her ankle were severely
sprained; but the pain was intense, and after a sleepless night, the
boys found, to their grief and dismay, that Catharine was unable to
put her foot to the ground. This was an unlooked-for aggravation of
their misfortunes; to pursue their wanderings was for the present
impossible; rest was their only remedy, excepting the application of
such cooling medicaments as circumstances would supply them with. Cold
water constantly applied to the swollen joint, was the first thing
that was suggested; but, simple as was the lotion, it was not easy to
obtain it in sufficient quantities. They were full a quarter of a mile
from the lake shore, and the cold springs near it were yet further
off; and then the only vessel they had was the tin pot, which hardly
contained a pint; at the same time the thirst of the fevered sufferer
was intolerable, and had also to be provided for. Poor Catharine, what
unexpected misery she now endured!

The valley and its neighbouring hills abounded in strawberries; they
were now ripening in abundance; the ground was scarlet in places with
this delicious fruit: they proved a blessed relief to the poor
sufferer's burning thirst. Hector and Louis were unwearied in
supplying her with them.

Louis, ever fertile in expedients, crushed the cooling fruit and
applied them to the sprained foot; rendering the application still
more grateful by spreading them upon the large smooth leaves of the
sapling oak: these he bound on with strips of the leathery bark of the
moose-wood, [Footnote: "_Dirca palustris_," moose-wood American
mezereon, leather-wood. From the Greek, _dirka_, a fountain or wet
place, its usual place of growth.] which he had found growing in great
abundance near the entrance of the ravine. Hector, in the meantime,
was not idle. After having collected a good supply of ripe
strawberries, he climbed the hills in search of birds' eggs and small
game. About noon he returned with the good news of having discovered a
spring of fine water in an adjoining ravine, beneath a clump of
bass-wood and black cherry trees; he had also been so fortunate as to
kill a woodchuck, having met with many of their burrows in the
gravelly sides of the hills. The woodchuck seems to be a link between
the rabbit and badger; its colour is that of a leveret: it climbs like
the raccoon, and burrows like the rabbit; its eyes are large, full,
and dark, the lip cleft, the soles of the feet naked, claws sharp,
ears short; it feeds on grasses, grain, fruit, and berries. The flesh
is white, oily, and, in the summer, rank, but is eaten in autumn by
the Indians and woodsmen; the skin is not much valued. They are easily
killed by dogs, though, being expert climbers, they often baffle their
enemies, clinging to the bark beyond their reach. A stone or stick
well aimed soon kills them; but they sometimes bite sharply.

The woodchuck proved a providential supply; and Hector cheered his
companions with the assurance that they could not starve, as there
were plenty of these creatures to be found. They had seen one or two
about Cold Springs, but they are less common in the deep forest lands
than on the drier, more open plains.

"It is a great pity we have no larger vessel to bring our water from
the spring," said Hector, looking at the tin pot; "one is so apt to
stumble among stones and tangled underwood. If we had only one of our
old bark dishes we could get a good supply at once."

"There is a fallen birch not far from this," said Louis. "I have here
my trusty knife; what is there to hinder us from constructing a vessel
capable of holding water, a gallon if you like?"

"How can you sew it together, cousin?" asked Catharine; "you have
neither deer sinews nor war-tap." The Indian name for the flexible
roots of the _tamarack_, or swamp larch, which they make use of in
manufacturing their birch baskets and canoes.

"I have a substitute at hand, ma belle;" and Louis pointed to the
strips of leather-wood he had collected for binding the dressings on
her foot.

When an idea once struck Louis, he never rested till he worked it out
in some way. In a few minutes he was busily employed, stripping sheets
of the ever-useful birch-bark from the birch tree that had fallen at
the foot of the "Wolf's Crag;" for so the children had named the
memorable spot where poor Catharine's accident had occurred.

The rough outside coatings of the bark, which are of silvery
whiteness, but ragged from exposure to the action of the weather in
the larger and older trees, he peeled off, and then cutting the bark
so that the sides lapped well over and the corners were secured from
cracks, he proceeded to pierce holes opposite to each other, and with
some trouble managed to stitch them tightly together, by drawing
strips of the moose or leather-wood through and through. The first
attempt, of course, was but rude and ill-shaped, but it answered the
purpose, and only leaked a little at the corners for want of a sort of
flap, which he had forgotten to allow in cutting out the bark,--this
flap in the Indian baskets and dishes turns up, and keeps all tight
and close,--a defect he remedied in his subsequent attempts. In spite
of its deficiencies, Louis's water-jar was looked upon with great
admiration, and highly commended by Catharine, who almost forgot her
sufferings while watching her cousin's proceedings.

Louis was elated by his own successful ingenuity, and was for running
off directly to the spring. "Catharine shall now have cold water to
bathe her poor ankle with, and to quench her thirst," he said,
joyfully springing to his feet, ready for a start up the steep bank;
but Hector quietly restrained his lively cousin, by suggesting the
possibility of his not finding the "fountain in the wilderness," as
Louis termed the spring, or losing himself altogether.

"Let us both go together then," cried Louis. Catharine cast on her
cousin an imploring glance.

"Do not leave me, dear Louis--Hector, do not let me be left alone."
Her sorrowful appeal stayed the steps of the volatile Louis.

"Go you, Hector, as you know the way.--I will not leave you, Kate,
since I was the cause of all you have suffered; I will abide by you,
in joy or in sorrow, till I see you once more safe in your own dear
mother's arms."

Comforted by this assurance, Catharine quickly dashed away the
gathering tears from her cheeks, and chid her own foolish fears.

"But you know, dear cousin," she said, "I am so helpless; and then the
dread of that horrible wolf makes a coward of me."

After some little time had elapsed, Hector returned. The bark vessel
had done its duty to admiration; it only wanted a very little
improvement to make it complete. The water was cold and pure. Hector
had spent a little time in deepening the mouth of the spring, and
placing some stones about it. He described the ravine as being much
deeper and wider and more gloomy than the one they occupied. The sides
and bottom were clothed with magnificent oaks. It was a grand sight,
he said, to stand on the jutting spurs of this great ravine, and look
down upon the tops of the trees that lay below, tossing their rounded
heads like the waves of a big sea. There were many lovely
flowers-vetches of several kinds, blue, white, and pencilled, twining
among the grass; a beautiful white-belled flower, that was like the
"morning glory" _(Convolvulus major),_ and scarlet cups [Footnote:
_Erichroma,_ or painted cup.] in abundance, with roses in profusion.
The bottom of this ravine was strewed in places with huge blocks of
black granite, cushioned with thick green moss; it opened out into a
wide flat, similar to the one at the mouth of the valley of the "Big
Stone."

Both Hector and his sister had insensibly imbibed a love of the grand
and picturesque, by listening with untiring interest to their father's
animated and enthusiastic descriptions of his Highland home, and the
wild mountainous scenery that surrounded it. Though brought up in
solitude and uneducated, there was nothing vulgar or rude in the minds
or manners of these young people. Simple and untaught they were, but
they were guileless, earnest, and unsophisticated; and if they lacked
the knowledge that is learned from books, they possessed much that was
useful and practical, which had been taught by experience and
observation in the school of necessity.

For several days the pain and fever arising from her sprain rendered
any attempt at removing Catharine from the valley of the "Big Stone"
impracticable. The ripe fruit began to grow less abundant in their
immediate vicinity; neither woodchuck, partridge, nor squirrel had
been killed; and our poor wanderers now endured the agonizing pains of
hunger. Continual exposure to the air by night and by day contributed
not a little to increase the desire for food. It is true, there was
the yet untried lake, "bright, boundless, and free," gleaming in
silvery splendour, but in practice they knew nothing of the fisher's
craft, though, as a matter of report, they were well acquainted with
its mysteries, and had often listened with delight to the feats
performed by their respective fathers in the art of angling, spearing,
and netting.

"I have heard my father say that so bold and numerous were the fish in
the lakes and rivers he used to fish in, that they could be taken by
the hand with a crooked pin and coarse thread, or wooden spear; but
that was in the Lower Province. And oh, what glorious tales I have
heard him tell of spearing fish by torchlight!"

"The fish may be wiser or not so numerous in this lake," said Hector,
"however, if Kate can bear to be moved, we will go down to the shore
and try our luck. But what can we do? we have neither hook nor line
provided."

Louis nodded his head, and sitting down on a projecting root of a
scrub oak, produced from the depths of his capacious pocket a bit of
tin, which he carefully selected from among a miscellaneous hoard of
treasures. "Here," said he, holding it up to the view as he
spoke,--"here is the slide of an old powder-flask, which I picked up
from among some rubbish my sister had thrown out the other day."

"I fear you will make nothing of that," said Hector; "a bit of bone
would be better. If you had a file now, you might do something."

"Stay a moment, Monsieur Hec; what do you call this?" and Louis
triumphantly handed out of his pocket the very instrument in question,
a few inches of a broken, rusty file; very rusty, indeed, it was, but
still it might be made to answer in such ingenious hands as those of
our young French Canadian.

"I well remember, Katty, how you and Mathilde laughed at me for
treasuring up this old thing months ago.--Ah, Louis, Louis, you little
knew the use it was to be put to then," he added thoughtfully,
apostrophizing himself; "how little do we know what is to befall us in
our young days!"

"God knows it all," said Hector gravely; "we are under his good
guidance."

"You are right, Hec; let us trust in his mercy, and he will take good
care of us. Come, let us go to the lake," Catharine added, and she
sprang to her feet, but as quickly sank down upon the grass, and
regarded her companions with a piteous look, saying, "I cannot walk
one step; alas, alas! what is to become of me? I am only a useless
burden to you. If you leave me here I shall fall a prey to some savage
beast; and you cannot carry me with you in your search for food."

"Dry your tears, sweet cousin; you shall go with us. Do you think that
Hector or Louis would abandon you in your helpless state, to die of
hunger or thirst, or to be torn by wolves or bears? We will carry you
by turns; the distance to the lake is nothing, and you are not so very
heavy, ma belle cousine; see, I could dance with you in my arms, you
are so light a burden,"--and Louis gaily caught the suffering girl up
in his arms, and with rapid steps struck into the deer-path that wound
through the ravine towards the lake. But when they reached a pretty,
rounded knoll (where Wolf Tower now stands), Louis was fain to place
his cousin on a flat stone beneath a big oak that grew beside the
bank, and fling himself on the flowery ground at her feet, while he
drew a long breath, and gathered the fruit that grew among the long
grass to refresh himself after his fatigue. And then, while resting on
the "Elfin Knowe," as Catharine called the hill, he employed himself
with manufacturing a rude sort of a fish-hook, with the aid of his
knife, the bit of tin, and the rusty file. A bit of twine was next
produced: boys have always a bit of string in their pockets; and
Louis, as I have before hinted, was a provident hoarder of such small
matters. The string was soon attached to the hook, and Hector was not
long in cutting a sapling that answered well the purpose of a
fishing-rod; and thus equipped they proceeded to the lake shore,
Hector and Louis carrying the crippled Catharine by turns. When there,
they selected a sheltered spot beneath a grove of overhanging cedars
and birches, festooned with wild vines, which, closely woven, formed a
natural bower, quite impervious to the rays of the sun. A waterfall
dashing from the upper part of the bank fell headlong in spray and
foam, and quietly spread itself among the round shingly fragments that
formed the beach of the lake. Beneath this pleasant bower Catharine
could repose and watch her companions at their novel employment, or
bathe her feet and infirm ankle in the cool streamlet that rippled in
tiny wavelets over its stony bed.

If the amusement of fishing prove pleasant and exciting when pursued
for pastime only, it may readily be conceived that its interest must
be greatly heightened when its object is satisfying a craving degree
of hunger. Among the sunny spots on the shore, innumerable swarms of
the flying grasshopper or field crickets were sporting, and one of
these proved an attractive bait. The line was no sooner cast into the
water than the hook was seized, and many were the brilliant specimens
of sun-fish that our eager fishermen cast at Catharine's feet, all
gleaming with gold and azure scales. Nor was there any lack of perch,
or that delicate fish commonly known in these waters as the pink
roach.

Tired at last with their easy sport, the hungry boys next proceeded to
the grateful task of scaling and dressing their fish. This they did
very expeditiously, as soon as the more difficult part of kindling a
fire on the beach had been accomplished with the help of the flint,
knife, and dried rushes. The fish were then suspended, Indian fashion,
on forked, sticks stuck in the ground and inclined at a suitable angle
towards the glowing embers,--a few minutes sufficed to cook them.

"Truly," said Catharine, when the plentiful repast was set before her,
"God hath, indeed, spread a table for us here in the wilderness;" so
miraculous did this ample supply of delicious food seem in the eyes of
this simple child of nature.

They had often heard tell of the facility with which the fish could be
caught, but they had known nothing of it from their own experience, as
the streams and creeks about Cold Springs afforded them but little
opportunity for exercising their skill as anglers; so that, with the
rude implements with which they were furnished, the result of their
morning success seemed little short of divine interference in their
behalf. Happy and contented in the belief that they were not forgotten
by their heavenly Father, these poor "children in the wood" looked up
with gratitude to that beneficent Being who suffereth not even a
sparrow to fall unheeded.

Upon Catharine, in particular, these things made a deep impression;
and there, as she sat in the green shade, soothed by the lulling sound
of the flowing waters, and the soft murmuring of the many-coloured
insects that hovered among the fragrant leaves which thatched her
sylvan bower, her young heart was raised in humble and holy
aspirations to the great Creator of all things living. A peaceful calm
diffused itself over her mind, as with hands meekly folded across her
breast, the young girl prayed with the guileless fervour of a trusting
and faithful heart.

The sun was just sinking in a flood of glory behind the dark
pine-woods at the head of the lake, when Hector and Louis, who had
been carefully providing fish for the morrow (which was the Sabbath),
came loaded with their finny prey carefully strung upon a willow-wand,
and found Catharine sleeping in her bower. Louis was loath to break
her tranquil slumbers, but her careful brother reminded him of the
danger to which she was exposed, sleeping in the dew by the
water-side. "Moreover," he added, "we have some distance to go, and we
have left the precious axe and the birch-bark vessel in the valley."

These things were too valuable to be lost, so they roused the sleeper,
and slowly recommenced their toilsome way, following the same path
that they had made in the morning. Fortunately, Hector had taken the
precaution to bend down the flexile branches of the dogwood and break
the tops of the young trees that they had passed between on their
route to the lake; and by this clue they were enabled with tolerable
certainty to retrace their way, nothing doubting of arriving in time
at the wigwam of boughs by the rock in the valley.

Their progress was, however, slow, burdened with the care of the lame
girl, and laden with the fish. The purple shades of twilight soon
clouded the scene, deepened by the heavy masses of foliage, which cast
greater obscurity upon their narrow path; for they had now left the
oak-flat and entered the gorge of the valley. The utter loneliness of
the path, the grotesque shadows of the trees that stretched in long
array across the steep banks on either side, taking now this, now that
wild and fanciful shape, awakened strange feelings of dread in the
mind of these poor forlorn wanderers; like most persons bred up in
solitude, their imaginations were strongly tinctured with
superstitious fears. Here, then, in the lonely wilderness, far from
their beloved parents and social hearth, with no visible arm to
protect them from danger, none to encourage or to cheer them, they
started with terror-blanched cheeks at every fitful breeze that
rustled the leaves or waved the branches above them.

The gay and lively Louis, blithe as any wild bird in the bright
sunlight, was the most easily oppressed by this strange superstitious
fear, when the shades of evening were closing round, and he would
start with ill-disguised terror at every sound or shape that met his
ear or eye, though the next minute he was the first to laugh at his
own weakness. In Hector the feeling was of a graver, more solemn cast,
recalling to his mind all the wild and wondrous tales with which his
father was wont to entertain the children as they crouched round the
huge log-fire of an evening. It is strange the charm these marvellous
tales possess for the youthful mind: no matter how improbable or how
often told, year after year they will be listened to with the same
ardour, with an interest that appears to grow with repetition. And
still, as they slowly wandered along, Hector would repeat to his
breathless auditors those Highland legends that were as familiar to
their ears as household words; and still they listened with fear and
wonder, and deep awe, till at each pause he made the deep-drawn breath
and half-repressed shudder might be heard. And now the little party
paused irresolutely, fearing to proceed: they had omitted to notice
some landmark in their progress; the moon had not long been up, and
her light was as yet indistinct; so they sat them down on a little
grassy spot on the bank, and rested till the moon should lighten their
path.

Louis was confident they were not far from the "Big Stone," but
careful Hector had his doubts, and Catharine was weary. The children
had already conceived a sort of home feeling for the valley and the
mass of stone that had sheltered them for so many nights; and soon the
dark mass came in sight, as the broad full light of the now risen moon
fell upon its rugged sides: they were nearer to it than they had
imagined.

"Forward for the 'Big Stone' and the wigwam," cried Louis.

"Hush!" said Catharine, "look there!" raising her hand with a warning
gesture.

"Where? what?"

"The wolf! the wolf!" gasped out the terrified girl. There, indeed,
upon the summit of the block, in the attitude of a sentinel or
watcher, stood the gaunt-figured animal; and as she spoke, a long wild
cry, the sound of which seemed as if it came midway between the earth
and the tops of the tall pines on the lofty ridge above them, struck
terror into their hearts, as with speechless horror they gazed upon
the dark outline of the terrible beast. There it stood, with its head
raised, its neck stretched outward, and ears erect, as if to catch the
echo that gave back those dismal sounds; another minute and he was
gone to join his companions, and the crashing of branches and the rush
of many feet on the high bank above was followed by the prolonged cry
of a poor fugitive animal,--a doe, or fawn, perhaps,--in the very
climax of mortal agony; and then the lonely recesses of the forest
took up that fearful death-cry, the far-off shores of the lake and the
distant islands prolonged it, and the terrified children clung
together in fear and trembling.

A few minutes over, and all was still. The chase had turned across the
hills to some distant ravine; the wolves were all gone--not even the
watcher was left; and the little valley lay once more in silence, with
all its dewy roses and sweet blossoms glittering in the moonlight. But
though around them all was peace and loveliness, it was long ere
confidence was restored to the hearts of the panic-stricken and
trembling children. They beheld a savage enemy in every mass of leafy
shade, and every rustling bough struck fresh terror into their excited
minds. They might have exclaimed, with the patriarch Jacob, "How
dreadful is this place!"

With hand clasped in hand, they sat them down among the thick covert
of the bushes; for now they feared to move forward, lest the wolves
should return. Sleep was long a stranger to their watchful eyes, each
fearing to be the only one left awake, and long and painful was their
vigil. Yet nature, overtasked, at length gave way, and sleep came down
upon their eyelids--deep, unbroken sleep, which lasted till the broad
sunlight, breaking through the leafy curtains of their forest-bed, and
the sound of waving boughs and twittering birds, once more awakened
them to life and light, recalling them from happy dreams of home and
friends to an aching sense of loneliness and desolation. This day they
did not wander far from the valley, but took the precaution, as
evening drew on, to light a large fire, the blaze of which they
thought would keep away any beast of prey. They had no want of food,
as the fish they had caught the day before proved an ample supply. The
huckleberries were ripening too, and soon afforded them a
never-failing source of food; there was also an abundance of
bilberries, the sweet fruit of which proved a great treat, besides
being very nourishing.




CHAPTER III.

  "Oh for a lodge in the vast wilderness,
   The boundless contiguity of shade!"


A fortnight had now passed, and Catharine still suffered so much from
pain and fever that they were unable to continue their wanderings; all
that Hector and his cousin could do was to carry her to the bower by
the lake, where she reclined whilst they caught fish. The painful
longing to regain their lost home had lost nothing of its intensity;
and often would the poor sufferer start from her bed of leaves and
boughs to wring her hands and weep, and call in piteous tones upon
that dear father and mother who would have given worlds, had they been
at their command, to have heard but one accent of her beloved voice,
to have felt one loving pressure from that fevered hand. Hope, the
consoler, hovered over the path of the young wanderers, long after she
had ceased to whisper comfort to the desolate hearts of the mournful
parents.

Of all that suffered by this sad calamity, no one was more to be
pitied than Louis Perron. Deeply did the poor boy lament the
thoughtless folly which had involved his cousin Catharine in so
terrible a misfortune. "If Kate had not been with me," he would say,
"we should not have been lost; for Hector is so cautious and so
careful, he would not have left the cattle-path. But we were so
heedless, we thought only of flowers and insects, of birds and such
trifles, and paid no heed to our way." Louis Perron, such is life. The
young press gaily onward, gathering the flowers, and following the gay
butterflies that attract them in the form of pleasure and amusement:
they forget the grave counsels of the thoughtful, till they find the
path they have followed is beset with briers and thorns; and a
thousand painful difficulties that were unseen, unexpected, overwhelm
and bring them to a sad sense of their own folly; and, perhaps, the
punishment of their errors does not fall upon themselves alone, but
upon the innocent, who have unknowingly been made participators in
their fault.

By the kindest and tenderest attention to all her comforts, Louis
endeavoured to alleviate his cousin's sufferings, and soften her
regrets; nay, he would often speak cheerfully and even gaily to her,
when his own heart was heavy and his eyes ready to overflow with
tears.

"If it were not for our dear parents and the dear children at home,"
he would say, "we might spend our time most happily upon these
charming plains; it is much more delightful here than in the dark,
thick woods; see how brightly the sunbeams come down and gladden the
ground, and cover the earth with fruit and flowers. It is pleasant to
be able to fish and hunt, and trap the game. Yes, if they were all
here, we would build us a nice log-house, and clear up these bushes on
the flat near the lake. This 'Elfin Knowe,' as you call it, Kate,
would be a nice spot to build upon. See these glorious old oaks--not
one should be cut down; and we would have a boat and a canoe, and
voyage across to yonder islands. Would it not be charming, ma belle?"
and Catharine, smiling at the picture drawn so eloquently, would enter
into the spirit of the project, and say,--

"Ah! Louis, that would be pleasant."

"If we had but my father's rifle now," said Hector, "and old Wolfe."

"Yes, and Fanchette, dear little Fanchette, that trees the partridges
and black squirrels," said Louis.

"I saw a doe and a half-grown fawn beside her this very morning, at
break of day," said Hector. "The fawn was so little fearful, that if I
had had a stick in my hand I could have killed it. I came within ten
yards of the spot where it stood. I know it would be easy to catch one
by making a dead-fall." A sort of trap in which game is taken in the
woods, or on the banks of creeks.

"If we had but a dear fawn to frolic about us, like Mignon, dear
innocent Mignon," cried Catharine, "I should never feel lonely then."

"And we should never want for meat, if we could catch a fine fawn from
time to time, ma belle.--Hec, what are you thinking of?"

"I was thinking, Louis, that if we were doomed to remain here all our
lives, we must build a house for ourselves; we could not live in the
open air without shelter as we have done. The summer will soon pass,
and the rainy season will come, and the bitter frosts and snows of
winter will have to be provided against."

"But, Hector, do you really think there is no chance of finding our
way back to Cold Springs? We know it must be behind this lake," said
Lotus.

"True, but whether east, west, or south, we cannot tell, and whichever
way we take now is but a chance; and if once we leave the lake and get
involved in the mazes of that dark forest, we should perish: for we
know there is neither water nor fruit nor game to be had as there is
here, and we might soon be starved to death. God was good who led us
beside this fine lake, and upon these fruitful plains."

"It is a good thing that I had my axe when we started from home," said
Hector. "We should not have been so well off without it; we shall find
the use of it if we have to build a house. We must look out for some
spot where there is a spring of good water, and--"

"No horrible wolves," interrupted Catharine. "Though I love this
pretty ravine, and the banks and braes about us, I do not think I
shall like to stay here. I heard the wolves only last night, when you
and Louis were asleep."

"We must not forget to keep watch-fires."

"What shall we do for clothes?" said Catharine, glancing at her
home-spun frock of wool and cotton plaid.

"A weighty consideration indeed," sighed Hector; "clothes must be
provided before ours are worn out and the winter comes on."

"We must save all the skins of the woodchucks and squirrels,"
suggested Louis; "and fawns when we catch them."

"Yes, and fawns when we get them," added Hector; "but it is time
enough to think of all these things; we must not give up all hope of
home."

"I give up all hope? I shall hope on while I have life," said
Catharine. "My dear, dear father, he will never forget his lost
children; he will try and find us, alive or dead; he will never give
up the search."

Poor child, how long did this hope burn like a living torch in thy
guileless breast. How often, as they roamed those hills and valleys,
were thine eyes sent into the gloomy recesses of the dark ravines and
thick bushes, with the hope that they would meet the advancing form
and outstretched arms of thy earthly parents: all in vain. Yet the
arms of thy heavenly Father were extended over thee, to guide, to
guard, and to sustain thee.

How often were Catharine's hands filled with wild-flowers, to carry
home, as she fondly said, to sick Louise or her mother. Poor
Catharine, how often did your bouquets fade; how often did the sad
exile water them with her tears,--for hers was the hope that keeps
alive despair.

When they roused them in the morning to recommence their fruitless
wanderings, they would say to each other, "Perhaps we shall see our
father, he may find us here to-day;" but evening came, and still he
came not, and they were no nearer to their father's home than they had
been the day previous.

"If we could but find our way back to the 'Cold Creek,' we might, by
following its course, return to Cold Springs," said Hector.

"I doubt much the fact of the 'Cold Creek' having any connection with
our Spring," said Louis; "I think it has its rise in the Beaver
Meadow, and following its course would only entangle us among those
wolfish balsam and cedar swamps, or lead us yet further astray into
the thick recesses of the pine forest. For my part, I believe we are
already fifty miles from Cold Springs."

Persons who lose their way in the pathless woods have no idea of
distance, or the points of the compass, unless they can see the sun
rise and set, which it is not possible to do when surrounded by the
dense growth of forest-trees; they rather measure distance by the time
they have been wandering, than by any other token.

The children knew that they had been a long time absent from home,
wandering hither and thither and they fancied their journey had been
as long as it had been weary. They had indeed the comfort of seeing
the sun in its course from east to west, but they knew not in what
direction the home they had lost lay; it was this that troubled them
in their choice of the course they should take each day, and at last
determined them to lose no more time so fruitlessly, where the peril
was so great, but seek for some pleasant spot where they might pass
their time in safety, and provide for their present and future wants.

  "The world was all before them, where to choose
   Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

Catharine declared her ankle was so much stronger than it had been
since the accident, and her health so much amended, that the day after
the conversation just recorded, the little party bade farewell to the
valley of the "Big Stone," and ascending the steep sides of the hills,
bent their steps eastward, keeping the lake to their left hand. Hector
led the way, loaded with the axe, which he would trust to no one but
himself, the tin-pot, and the birch basket. Louis had to assist his
cousin up the steep banks, likewise some fish to carry, which had been
caught early in the morning.

The wanderers thought at first to explore the ground near the lake
shore, but soon abandoned this resolution on finding the undergrowth
of trees and bushes become so thick that they made little progress,
and the fatigue of travelling was greatly increased by having
continually to put aside the bushes or bend them down.

Hector advised trying the higher ground; and after following a
deer-path through a small ravine that crossed the hills, they found
themselves on a fine extent of table-land, richly but not too densely
wooded with white and black oaks (_Quercus alba_, and _Quercus
nigra_), diversified with here and there a solitary pine, which
reared its straight and pillar-like trunk in stately grandeur above
its leafy companions; a meet eyrie for the bald eagle, that kept watch
from its dark crest over the silent waters of the lake, spread below
like a silver zone studded with emeralds.

In their progress they passed the head of many small ravines, which
divided the hilly shores of the lake into deep furrows: these furrows
had once been channels by which the waters of some upper lake (the
site of which is now dry land) had at a former period poured down into
the valley, filling the basin of what now is called the Rice Lake.
These waters, with resistless sweep, had ploughed their way between
the hills, bearing in their course those blocks of granite and
limestone which are so widely scattered both on the hill-tops and the
plains, or form a rocky pavement at the bottom of the narrow defiles.
What a sight of sublime desolation must that outpouring of the waters
have presented, when those deep banks were riven by the sweeping
torrents that were loosened from their former bounds! The pleased eye
rests upon these tranquil shores, now covered with oaks and pines, or
waving with a flood of golden grain, or varied by neat dwellings and
fruitful gardens; and the gazer on that peaceful scene scarcely
pictures to himself what it must have been when no living eye was
there to mark the rushing floods when they scooped to themselves the
deep bed in which they now repose.

Those lovely islands that sit like stately crowns upon the waters were
doubtless the wreck that remained of the valley; elevated spots, whose
rocky bases withstood the force of the rushing waters, that carried
away the lighter portions of the soil. The southern shore, seen from
the lake, seems to lie in regular ridges running from south to north:
some few are parallel with the lake shore, possibly where some
insurmountable impediment turned the current of the subsiding waters;
but they all find an outlet through their connection with ravines
communicating with the lake.

There is a beautiful level tract of land; with only here and there a
solitary oak or a few stately pines growing upon it; it is commonly
called the "Upper Race-course," on account of the smoothness of the
surface. It forms a high table-land, nearly three hundred feet above
the lake, and is surrounded by high hills. This spot, though now dry
and covered with turf and flowers, and low bushes, has evidently once
been a broad sheet of water. To the eastward lies a still more lovely
and attractive spot, known as the "Lower Race-course." It lies on a
lower level than the former one, and, like it, is embanked by a ridge
of distant hills. Both have ravines leading down to the Rice Lake, and
may have been the sources from whence its channel was filled. Some
convulsion of nature at a remote period, by raising the waters above
their natural level, might have caused a disruption of the banks, and
drained their beds, as they now appear ready for the ploughshare or
the spade. In the month of June these flats are brilliant with the
splendid blossoms of the _Castilegia coccinea_, or painted-cup, the
azure lupine (_Lupinus perennis_), and snowy _Trillium_; dwarf roses
(_Rosa blanda_) scent the evening air, and grow as if planted by the
hand of taste.

A carpeting of the small downy saxifrage (_Saxifraga nivalis_), with
its white silky leaves, covers the ground in early spring. In autumn
it is red with the bright berries and dark box-shaped leaves of a
species of creeping winter-green, that the Indians call spice-berry
(_Gaultheria procumbens_); the leaves are highly aromatic, and it is
medicinal as well as agreeable to the taste and smell. In the month of
July a gorgeous assemblage of orange lilies (_Lilium Philadelphicum_)
take the place of the lupine and trilliums: these splendid lilies vary
from orange to the brightest scarlet. Various species of sunflowers
and coreopsis next appear, and elegant white _pyrolas_ [Footnote:
Indian bean, also called Indian potato (_Apios tuberosa_).] scent the
air and charm the eye. The delicate lilac and white shrubby asters
next appear; and these are followed by the large deep-blue gentian,
and here and there by the elegant fringed gentian. [Footnote: Gentiana
linearis, G. crenata.] These are the latest and loveliest of the
flowers that adorn this tract of land. It is indeed a garden of
nature's own planting, but the wild garden is being converted into
fields of grain, and the wild flowers give place to a new race of
vegetables, less ornamental, but more useful to man and the races of
domestic animals that depend upon him for their support.

Our travellers, after wandering over this lovely plain, found
themselves, at the close of the day, at the head of a fine ravine,
[Footnote: Kilvert's Ravine, above Pine-tree Point.] where they had
the good fortune to perceive a spring of pure water oozing beneath
some large moss-covered blocks of black waterworn granite. The ground
was thickly covered with moss about the edges of the spring, and many
varieties of flowering shrubs and fruits were scattered along the
valley and up the steep sides of the surrounding hills. There were
whortleberries, or huckleberries, as they are more usually called, in
abundance; bilberries dead ripe, and falling from the bushes at a
touch. The vines that wreathed the low bushes and climbed the trees
were loaded with clusters of grapes; but these were yet hard and
green. Dwarf filberts grew on the dry gravelly sides of the hills, yet
the rough prickly calyx that enclosed the nut filled their fingers
with minute thorns that irritated the skin like the stings of the
nettle; but as the kernel, when ripe, was sweet and good, they did not
mind the consequences. The moist part of the valley was occupied by a
large bed of May-apples, [Footnote: _Podophyllum peltatum_,--mandrake,
or May-apple.] the fruit of which was of unusual size, but they were
not ripe, August being the month when they ripen; there were also wild
plums still green, and wild cherries and blackberries ripening. There
were great numbers of the woodchucks' burrows on the hills; wild
partridges and quails were seen under the thick covert of the
blue-berried dog-wood, [Footnote: _Cornus sericea_. The blue berries
of this shrub are eaten by the partridge and wild ducks; also by the
pigeons, and other birds. There are several species of this shrub
common to the Rice Lake.] that here grew in abundance at the mouth of
the ravine where it opened to the lake. As this spot offered many
advantages, our travellers halted for the night, and resolved to make
it their headquarters for a season, till they should meet with an
eligible situation for building a winter shelter.

Here, then, at the head of the valley, sheltered by one of the rounded
hills that formed its sides, our young people erected a summer hut,
somewhat after the fashion of an Indian wigwam, which was all the
shelter that was requisite while the weather remained so warm. Through
the opening at the gorge of this ravine they enjoyed a peep at the
distant waters of the lake, which terminated the vista, while they
were quite removed from its unwholesome vapours.

The temperature of the air for some days had been hot and sultry,
scarcely modified by the cool, delicious breeze that usually sets in
about nine o'clock and blows most refreshingly till four or five in
the afternoon. Hector and Louis had gone down to fish for supper,
while Catharine busied herself in collecting leaves and dried
deer-grass, moss and fern, of which there was abundance near the
spring. The boys had promised to cut some fresh cedar boughs near the
lake shore, and bring them up to form a foundation for their beds, and
also to strew Indian-fashion over the floor of the hut by way of a
carpet.

The fragrant carpet of cedar or hemlock-spruce sprigs strewn lightly
over the earthen floor, was to them a luxury as great as if it had
been taken from the looms of Persia or Turkey, so happy and contented
were they in their ignorance. Their beds of freshly gathered grass and
leaves, raised from the earth by a heap of branches carefully
arranged, were to them as pleasant as beds of down, and the rude hut
of bark and poles as curtains of damask or silk.

Having collected as much of these materials as she deemed sufficient
for the purpose, Catharine next gathered up the dry oak branches, to
make a watch-fire for the night. This done, weary and warm, she sat
down on a little hillock, beneath the cooling shade of a grove of
young aspens that grew near the hut. Pleased with the dancing of the
leaves, which fluttered above her head, and fanned her warm cheek with
their incessant motion, she thought, like her cousin Louise, that the
aspen was the merriest tree in the forest, for it was always dancing,
dancing, dancing.

She watched the gathering of the distant thunderclouds, which cast a
deeper, more sombre shade upon the pines that girded the northern
shores of the lake as with an ebon frame. Insensibly her thoughts
wandered far away from the lonely spot whereon she sat, to the stoup
[Footnote: The Dutch word for veranda, which is still in common use
among the Canadians.] in front of her father's house, and in memory's
eye she beheld it all exactly as she had left it. There stood the big
spinning-wheel, just as she had set it aside; the hanks of dyed yarn
suspended from the rafters, the basket filled with the carded wool
ready for her work. She saw in fancy her father, with his fine
athletic upright figure, his sunburnt cheeks and clustering sable
hair, his clear energetic hazel eyes ever beaming upon her, his
favourite child, with looks of love and kindness as she moved to and
fro at her wheel. [Footnote: Such is the method of working at the
large wool-wheel, unknown or obsolete in England.] There, too, was her
mother, with her light step and sweet cheerful voice, singing as she
pursued her daily avocations; and Donald and Kenneth driving up the
cows to be milked, or chopping firewood. And as these images, like the
figures of the magic-lantern, passed in all their living colours
before her mental vision, her head drooped heavier and lower till it
sank upon her arm; and then she started, looked round, and slept
again, her face deeply buried in her young bosom, and long and
peacefully the young girl slumbered.

A sound of hurrying feet approaches, a wild cry is heard and panting
breath, and the sleeper, with a startling scream, springs to her feet:
she dreamed that she was struggling in the fangs of a wolf--its grisly
paws were clasped about her throat; the feeling was agony and
suffocation: her languid eyes open. Can it be?--what is it that she
sees? Yes, it is Wolfe; not the fierce creature of her dreams by night
and her fears by day, but her father's own brave, devoted dog. What
joy, what hope rushed to her heart! She threw herself upon the shaggy
neck of the faithful beast, and wept from fulness of heart.

"Yes," she joyfully cried, "I knew that I should see him again. My own
dear, dear, loving father! Father! father! dear, dear father, here are
your children! Come, come quickly!" and she hurried to the head of the
valley, raising her voice, that the beloved parent, who she now
confidently believed was approaching, might be guided to the spot by
the well-known sound of her voice.

Poor child! the echoes of thy eager voice, prolonged by every
projecting headland of the valley, replied in mocking tones, "Come
quickly!"

Bewildered she paused, listened breathlessly, and again she called,
"Father, come quickly, come!" and again the deceitful sounds were
repeated, "Quickly come!"

The faithful dog, who had succeeded in tracking the steps of his lost
mistress, raised his head and erected his ears as she called on her
father's name; but he gave no joyful bark of recognition as he was
wont to do when he heard his master's step approaching. Still
Catharine could not but think that Wolfe had only hurried on before,
and that her father must be very near.

The sound of her voice had been heard by her brother and cousin, who,
fearing some evil beast had made its way to the wigwam, hastily wound
up their line and left the fishing-ground to hurry to her assistance.
They could hardly believe their eyes when they saw Wolfe, faithful old
Wolfe, their earliest friend and playfellow, named by their father
after the gallant hero of Quebec. And they too, like Catharine,
thought that their friends were not far distant; joyfully they climbed
the hills and shouted aloud, and Wolfe was coaxed and caressed and
besought to follow them to point out the way they should take. But all
their entreaties were in vain. Worn out with fatigue and long fasting,
the poor old dog refused to quit the embers of the fire, before which
he stretched himself, and the boys now noticed his gaunt frame and
wasted flesh--he looked almost starved. The fact now became evident
that he was in a state of great exhaustion. Catharine thought he eyed
the spring with wishful looks, and she soon supplied him with water in
the bark dish to his great relief.

Wolfe had been out for several days with his master, who would repeat,
in tones of sad earnestness, to the faithful creature, "Lost, lost,
lost!" It was his custom to do so when the cattle strayed, and Wolfe
would travel in all directions till he found them, nor ceased his
search till he discovered the objects he was ordered to bring home.
The last night of the father's wanderings, when, sick and hopeless, he
came back to his melancholy home, as he sat sleeplessly rocking
himself to and fro, he involuntarily exclaimed, wringing his hands,
"Lost, lost, lost!" Wolfe heard what to him was an imperative command;
he rose, and stood at the door, and whined. Mechanically his master
rose, lifted the latch, and again exclaimed in passionate tones those
magic words, that sent the faithful messenger forth into the dark
forest path. Once on the trail he never left it, but with an instinct
incomprehensible as it was powerful, he continued to track the woods,
lingering long on spots where the wanderers had left any signs of
their sojourn; he had for some time been baffled at the Beaver Meadow,
and again where they had crossed Cold Creek, but had regained the
scent and traced them to the valley of the "Big Stone," and then, with
the sagacity of the bloodhound and the affection of the terrier he
had, at last, discovered the objects of his unwearied though often
baffled search.

What a state of excitement did the unexpected arrival of old Wolfe
create! How many questions were put to the poor beast, as he lay with
his head pillowed on the knees of his loving mistress! Catharine knew
it was foolish, but she could not help talking to the dumb animal, as
if he had been conversant with her own language. Ah, old Wolfe, if
your homesick nurse could but have interpreted those expressive looks,
those eloquent waggings of your bushy tail, as it flapped upon the
grass, or waved from side to side; those gentle lickings of the hand,
and mute sorrowful glances, as though he would have said, "Dear
mistress, I know all your troubles; I know all you say; but I cannot
answer you!" There is something touching in the silent sympathy of the
dog, to which only the hard-hearted and depraved can be quite
insensible. I remember once hearing of a felon who had shown the
greatest obstinacy and callous indifference to the appeals of his
relations and the clergyman who attended him in prison, but was
softened by the sight of a little dog that had been his companion in
his days of comparative innocence, forcing its way through the crowd,
till it gained the foot of the gallows; its mute look of anguish and
affection unlocked the fount of human feeling, and the condemned man
wept--perhaps the first tears he had shed since childhood's happy
days.

The night closed in with a tempest of almost tropical violence. The
inky darkness of the sky was relieved, at intervals, by sheets of
lurid flame, which revealed every object far off or near. The distant
lake, just seen amid the screen of leaves through the gorge of the
valley, gleamed like a sea of molten sulphur; the deep narrow defile,
shut in by the steep and wooded hills, looked deeper, more wild and
gloomy, when revealed by that vivid glare of light.

There was no stir among the trees, the heavy rounded masses of foliage
remained unmoved; the very aspen, that tremulous sensitive tree,
scarcely stirred: it seemed as if the very pulses of nature were at
rest. The solemn murmur that preceded the thunder-peals might have
been likened to the moaning of the dying. The children felt the
loneliness of the spot. Seated at the entrance of their sylvan hut, in
front of which their evening fire burned brightly, they looked out
upon the storm in silence and in awe. Screened by the sheltering
shrubs that grew near them, they felt comparatively safe from the
dangers of the storm, which now burst in terrific violence above the
valley. Cloud answered to cloud, and the echoes of the hills prolonged
the sound, while shattered trunks and brittle branches filled the air,
and shrieked and groaned in that wild war of elements.

Between the pauses of the tempest the long howl of the wolves, from
their covert in some distant cedar swamp at the edge of the lake,
might be heard from time to time,--a sound that always thrilled their
hearts with fear. To the mighty thunder-peals that burst above their
heads they listened with awe and wonder. It seemed, indeed, to them as
if it were the voice of Him who "sendeth out his voice, yea, and that
a mighty voice." And they bowed and adored his majesty; but they
shrank with curdled blood from the cry of the _felon wolf_.

And now the storm was at its climax, and the hail and rain came down
in a whitening flood upon that ocean of forest leaves; the old gray
branches were lifted up and down, and the stout trunks rent, for they
would not bow down before the fury of the whirlwind, and were
scattered all abroad like chaff before the wind.

The children thought not of danger for themselves, but they feared for
the safety of their fathers, whom they believed to be not far off from
them. And often amid the raging of the elements they fancied they
could distinguish familiar voices calling upon their names.

"Ah, if our fathers should have perished in this fearful storm," said
Catharine, weeping, "or have been starved to death while seeking for
us!" She covered her face and wept more bitterly.

But Louis would not listen to such melancholy forebodings. Their
fathers were both brave, hardy men, accustomed to every sort of danger
and privation; they were able to take care of themselves. Yes, he was
sure they were not far off; it was this unlucky storm coming on that
had prevented them from meeting.

"To-morrow, ma chere, will be a glorious day after the storm. It will
be a joyful one too; we shall go out with Wolfe, and he will find his
master, and then--oh, yes! I dare say my dear father will be with
yours. They will have taken good heed to the track, and we shall soon
see our dear mothers and chere petite Louise."

The storm lasted till past midnight, when it gradually subsided, and
the poor wanderers were glad to see the murky clouds roll off, and the
stars peep forth among their broken masses; but they were reduced to a
pitiful state, the hurricane having beaten down their little hut, and
their garments were drenched with rain. However, the boys made a good
fire with some bark and boughs they had in store: there were a few
sparks in their back log unextinguished; these they gladly fanned up
into a blaze, at which they dried their wet clothes, and warmed
themselves. The air was now cool almost to chilliness; for some days
the weather remained unsettled, and the sky overcast with clouds,
while the lake presented a leaden hue, crested with white mimic waves.

They soon set to work to make another hut, and found close to the head
of the ravine a great pine uprooted, affording them large pieces of
bark, which proved very serviceable in thatching the sides of the hut.
The boys employed themselves in this work, while Catharine cooked the
fish they had caught the day before, with a share of which old Wolfe
seemed to be mightily well pleased. After they had breakfasted, they
all went up towards the high table-land above the ravine, with Wolfe,
to look round in hope of getting sight of their friends from Cold
Springs; but though they kept an anxious look-out in every direction,
they returned towards evening tired and hopeless. Hector had killed a
red squirrel, and a partridge which Wolfe "treed,"--that is, stood
barking at the foot of the tree in which it had perched,--and the
supply of meat was a seasonable change. They also noticed and marked
with the axe, several trees where there were bee-hives, intending to
come in the cold weather and cut them down. Louis's father was a great
and successful bee-hunter; and Louis rather prided himself on having
learned something of his father's skill in that line. Here, where
flowers were so abundant and water plentiful; the wild bees seemed to
be abundant also; besides, the open space between the trees, admitting
the warm sunbeams freely, was favourable both for the bees and the
flowers on which they fed, and Louis talked joyfully of the fine
stores of honey they should collect in autumn. He had taught little
Fanchon, a small French spaniel of his father's, to find out the trees
where the bees hived, and also the nests of the ground-bees, and she
would bark at the foot of the tree, or scratch with her feet on the
ground, as the other dogs barked at the squirrels or the woodchucks;
but Fanchon was far away, and Wolfe was old and would learn no new
tricks, so Louis knew he had nothing but his own observation and the
axe to depend upon for procuring honey.

The boys had been unsuccessful for some days past, in fishing; neither
perch nor sunfish, pink roach nor mud-pouts [Footnote: All these fish
are indigenous to the fresh waters of Canada.] were to be caught.
However, they found water-mussels by groping in the sand, and
cray-fish among the gravel at the edge of the water only; the latter
pinched their fingers very spitefully. The mussels were not very
palatable, for want of salt; but hungry folks must not be dainty, and
Louis declared them very good when well roasted, covered up with hot
embers. "The fish-hawks," said he, "set us a good example, for they
eat them, and so do the eagles and herons. I watched one the other day
with a mussel in his bill: he flew to a high tree, let his prey fall,
and immediately darted down to secure it. But I drove him off; and, to
my great amusement, perceived the wise fellow had just let it fall on
a stone, which had cracked the shell for him just in the right place.
I often see shells lying at the foot of trees, far up the hills, where
these birds must have left them. There is one large thick-shelled
mussel that I have found several times with a round hole drilled
through the shell, just as if it had been done with a small
auger,--doubtless the work of some bird with a strong beak."

"Do you remember," said Catharine, "the fine pink mussel-shell that
Hec picked up in the little corn-field last year? It had a hole in one
of the shells too, [Footnote: This ingenious mode of cracking the
shells of mussels is common to many birds. The crow (_Corvus corone_)
has been long known by American naturalists to break the thick shells
of the river mussels, by letting them fall from a height on to rocks
and stones.] and when my uncle saw it, he said it must have been
dropped by some large bird, a fish-hawk possibly, or a heron, and
brought from the great lake, as it had been taken out of some deep
water; the mussels in our creeks being quite thin-shelled and white."

"Do you remember what a quantity of large fish bones we found in the
eagle's nest on the top of our hill, Louis?" said Hector.

"I do. Those fish must have been larger than our perch and sunfish;
they were brought from this very lake, I dare say."

"If we had a good canoe now, or a boat, and a strong hook and line, we
might become great fishermen."

"Louis," said Catharine, "is always thinking about canoes, and boats,
and skiffs; he ought to have been a sailor."

Louis was confident that if they had a canoe he could soon learn to
manage her; he was an excellent sailor already in theory. Louis never
saw difficulties; he was always hopeful, and had a very good opinion
of his own cleverness; he was quicker in most things, his ideas flowed
faster than Hector's. But Hector was more prudent, and possessed one
valuable quality--steady perseverance: he was slow in adopting an
opinion, but when once convinced, he pushed on steadily till he
mastered the subject or overcame the obstacle.

"Catharine," said Louis one day, "the huckleberries are now very
plentiful, and I think it would be a wise thing to gather a good store
of them and dry them for the winter. See, ma chere, wherever we turn
our eyes or place our feet they are to be found; the hill-sides are
purple with them. We may for aught we know, be obliged to pass the
rest of our lives here; it will be well to prepare for the winter,
when no berries are to be found."

"It will be well, mon ami. But we must not dry them in the sun; for
let me tell you, Mr. Louis, that they will be quite tasteless--mere
dry husks."

"Why so, ma belle?"

"I do not know the reason, but I only know the fact; for when our
mothers dried the currants and raspberries in the sun, such was the
case; but when they dried them on the oven floor, or on the hearth,
they were quite nice."

"Well, Cath, I think I know of a flat thin stone that will make a good
hearthstone; and we can get sheets of birch bark and sew into flat
bags to keep the dried fruit in."

They now turned all their attention to drying huckleberries (or
whortleberries). [Footnote: From the abundance of this fruit, the
Indians have given the name of Whortleberry Plain to the lands on the
south shore. During the month of July and the early part of August,
large parties come to the Rice Lake Plains to gather huckleberries,
which they preserve by drying, for winter use. These berries make a
delicious tart or pudding, mixed with bilberries and red currants,
requiring little sugar.] Catharine and Louis (who fancied nothing
could be contrived without his help) attended to the preparing and
making of the bags of birch bark; but Hector was soon tired of girl's
work, as he termed it, and after gathering some berries, would wander
away over the hills in search of game and to explore the neighbouring
hills and valleys, and sometimes it was sunset before he made his
appearance. Hector had made an excellent strong bow, like the Indian
bow, out of a tough piece of hickory wood, which he found in one of
his rambles, and he made arrows with wood that he seasoned in the
smoke, sharpening the heads with great care with his knife, and
hardening them by exposure to strong heat, at a certain distance from
the fire. The entrails of the woodchuck, stretched, and scraped, and
dried, and rendered pliable by rubbing and drawing through the hands,
answered for a bow-string; but afterwards, when they got the sinews
and hide of the deer, they used them, properly dressed for the
purpose.

Hector also made a cross-bow, which he used with great effect, being a
true and steady marksman. Louis and he would often amuse themselves
with shooting at a mark, which they would chip on the bark of a tree,
even Catharine was a tolerable archeress with the long-bow, and the
hut was now seldom without game of one kind or other. Hector seldom
returned from his rambles without partridges, quails, or young
pigeons, which are plentiful at this season of the year; many of the
old ones that pass over in their migratory flight in the spring stay
to breed, or return thither for the acorns and berries that are to be
found in great abundance. Squirrels, too, are very plentiful at this
season. Hector and Louis remarked that the red and black squirrels
never were to be found very near each other. It is a common belief
that the red squirrels make common cause with the gray, and beat the
larger enemy off the ground. The black squirrel, for a succession of
years, was very rarely to be met with on the Plains, while there were
plenty of the red and gray in the "oak openings." [Footnote: Within
the last few years, however, the black squirrels have been very
numerous, and the red are less frequently to be seen. The flesh of the
black squirrel is tender, white, and delicate, like that of a young
rabbit.] Deer, at the time our young Crusoes were living on the Rice
Lake Plains, were plentiful, and, of course, so were those beasts that
prey upon them,--wolves, bears, and wolverines, besides the Canadian
lynx, or catamount, as it is here commonly called, a species of wild
cat or panther. These wild animals are now no longer to be seen: it is
a rare thing to hear of bears or wolves, and the wolverine and lynx
are known only as matters of history in this part of the country.
These animals disappear as civilization advances, while some others
increase and follow man, especially many species of birds, which seem
to pick up the crumbs that fall from the rich man's board, and
multiply about his dwelling; some adopt new habits and modes of
building and feeding, according to the alteration and improvement in
their circumstances.

While our young people seldom wanted for meat, they felt the privation
of the bread to which they had been accustomed very sensibly. One day,
while Hector and Louis were busily engaged with their assistant,
Wolfe, in unearthing a woodchuck, that had taken refuge in his burrow,
on one of the gravelly hills above the lake, Catharine amused herself
by looking for flowers. She had filled her lap with ripe May-apples,
[Footnote: The fruit of the May-apple, in rich, moist soil, will
attain to the size of the magnum bonum, or egg-plum, which it
resembles in colour and shape. It makes a delicious preserve, if
seasoned with cloves or ginger. When eaten uncooked, the outer rind,
which is thick and fleshy and has a rank taste, should be thrown
aside; the fine seed pulp in which the seeds are embedded alone should
be eaten. The root of the podophyllum is used as a cathartic by the
Indians. The root of this plant is reticulated, and when a large body
of them are uncovered, they present a singular appearance, interlacing
each other in large meshes like an extensive net-work. These roots are
white, as thick as a man's little finger, and fragrant, and spread
horizontally along the surface. The blossom is like a small white
rose.] but finding them cumbersome in climbing the steep wooded hills,
she deposited them at the foot of a tree near the boys, and pursued
her search; and it was not long before she perceived some pretty
grassy-looking plants, with heads of bright lilac flowers, and on
plucking one pulled up the root also. The root was about the size and
shape of a large crocus: and on biting it, she found it far from
disagreeable--sweet, and slightly astringent. It seemed to be a
favourite root with the woodchucks, for she noticed that it grew about
their burrows on dry, gravelly soil, and many of the stems were bitten
and the roots eaten--a warrant, in full, of wholesomeness. Therefore,
carrying home a parcel of the largest of the roots, she roasted them
in the embers; and they proved almost as good as chestnuts, and more
satisfying than the acorns of the white oak, which they had often
roasted in the fire when they were out working on the fallow at the
log heaps. Hector and Louis ate heartily of the roots, and commended
Catharine for the discovery. Not many days afterwards, Louis
accidentally found a much larger and more valuable root near the lake
shore. He saw a fine climbing shrub, with close bunches of dark,
reddish-purple, pea-shaped flowers, which scented the air with a
delicious perfume. The plant climbed to a great height over the young
trees, with a profusion of dark-green leaves and tendrils. Pleased
with the bowery appearance of the plant, he tried to pull one up, that
he might show it to his cousin, when the root displayed a number of
large tubers, as big as good-sized potatoes, regular oval-shaped; the
inside was quite white, tasting somewhat like a potato, only
pleasanter, when in its raw state, than an uncooked potato. Louis
gathered his pockets full, and hastened home with his prize; and on
being roasted, these new roots were decided to be little inferior to
potatoes--at all events, they were a valuable addition to their
slender stores; and they procured as many as they could find,
carefully storing them in a hole which they dug for that purpose in a
corner of their hut. [Footnote: This plant appears to me to be a
species of the _Psoralea esculenta_, or Indian bread-root, which it
resembles in description, excepting that the root of the above is
tuberous, oval, and connected by long filaments. The largest tubers
are farthest from the stem of the plant.] Hector suggested that these
roots would be far better late in autumn or early in the spring than
during the time that the plant was in bloom; for he knew from
observation and experience that at the flowering season the greater
part of the nourishment derived from the soil goes to perfect the
flower and the seeds. Upon scraping the cut tuber, there was a white,
floury powder produced, resembling the starchy substance of the
potato.

"This flour," said Catharine, "would make good porridge with milk."

"Excellent, no doubt, my wise little cook and housekeeper," said Louis
laughing; "but, ma belle cousine, where is the milk and where is the
porridge-pot to come from?"

"Indeed," said Catharine, "I fear, Louis, we must wait long for both."

One fine day Louis returned home from the lake shore in great haste
for the bows and arrows, with the interesting news that a herd of five
deer were in the water, and making for Long Island.

"But, Louis, they will be gone out of sight and beyond the reach of
the arrows," said Catharine, as she handed him down the bows and a
sheaf of arrows, which she quickly slung round his shoulders by the
belt of skin which the young hunter had made for himself.

"No fear, ma chere; they will stop to feed on the beds of rice and
lilies. We must have Wolfe. Here, Wolfe, Wolfe, Wolfe! here, boy,
here!"

Catharine caught a portion of the excitement that danced in the bright
eyes of her cousin, and declaring that she too would go and witness
the hunt, ran down the ravine by his side; while Wolfe, who evidently
understood that they had some sport in view, trotted along by his
mistress, wagging his great bushy tail, and looking in high
good-humour.

Hector was impatiently waiting the arrival of the bows and Wolfe. The
herd of deer, consisting of a noble buck, two full-grown females, and
two young half-grown males, were quietly feeding among the beds of
rice and rushes not more than fifteen or twenty yards from the shore,
apparently quite unconcerned at the presence of Hector, who stood on a
fallen trunk, eagerly eying their motions. But the hurried steps of
Louis and Catharine, with the deep, sonorous baying of Wolfe, soon
roused the timid creatures to a sense of danger; and the stag, raising
his head and making, as the children thought, a signal for retreat,
now struck boldly out for the nearest point of Long Island.

"We shall lose them," cried Louis despairingly, eying the long bright
track that cut the silvery waters as the deer swam gallantly out.

"Hist, hist, Louis," said Hector; "all depends upon Wolfe--Turn them,
Wolfe! hey, hey, seek them, boy!"

Wolfe dashed bravely into the lake.

"Head them! head them!" shouted Hector. Wolfe knew what was meant.
With the sagacity of a long-trained hunter, he made a desperate effort
to gain the advantage by a circuitous route. Twice the stag turned
irresolute, as if to face his foe, and Wolfe, taking the time, swam
ahead, and then the race began. As soon as the boys saw the herd had
turned, and that Wolfe was between them and the island, they
separated, Louis making good his ambush to the right among the cedars,
and Hector at the spring to the west, while Catharine was stationed at
the solitary pine-tree, at the point which commanded the entrance of
the ravine.

"Now, Cathy," said her brother, "when you see the herd making for the
ravine, shout and clap your hands, and they will turn either to the
right or to the left. Do not let them land, or we shall lose them. We
must trust to Wolfe for their not escaping to the island. Wolfe is
well trained; he knows what he is about."

Catharine proved a dutiful ally. She did as she was bid. She waited
till the deer were within a few yards of the shore, then she shouted
and clapped her hands. Frightened at the noise and clamour, the
terrified creatures coasted along for some way, till within a little
distance of the thicket where Hector lay concealed--the very spot from
which they had emerged when they first took to the water; to this
place they boldly steered. Louis, who had watched the direction the
herd had taken with breathless interest, now noiselessly hurried to
Hector's assistance, taking an advantageous post for aim, in case
Hector's arrow missed, or only slightly wounded one of the deer.

Hector, crouched beneath the trees, waited cautiously till one of the
does was within reach of his arrow, and so good and true was his aim,
that it hit the animal in the throat a little above the chest, The
stag now turned again, but Wolfe was behind and pressed him forward,
and again the noble animal strained every nerve for the shore. Louis
now shot his arrow, but it swerved from the mark. He was too eager;
the arrow glanced harmlessly along the water. But the cool,
unimpassioned hand of Hector sent another arrow between the eyes of
the doe, stunning her with its force; and then another from Louis laid
her on her side, dying, and staining the water with her blood.

The herd, abandoning their dying companion, dashed frantically to the
shore; and the young hunters, elated by their success, suffered them
to make good their landing without further molestation. Wolfe, at a
signal from his master, ran in the quarry, and Louis declared
exultingly that as his last arrow had given the _coup de grace_,
he was entitled to the honour of cutting the throat of the doe; but
this the stern Highlander protested against, and Louis, with a
careless laugh, yielded the point, contenting himself with saying, "Ah
well, I will get the first steak of the venison when it is roasted,
and that is far more to my taste." Moreover, he privately recounted to
Catharine the important share he had had in the exploit, giving her,
at the same time, full credit for the worthy service she had performed
in withstanding the landing of the herd. Wolfe, too, came in for a
large share of the honour and glory of the chase.

The boys were soon hard at work skinning the animal and cutting it up.
This was the most valuable acquisition they had yet effected, for many
uses were to be made of the deer besides eating the flesh. It was a
store of wealth in their eyes.

During the many years that their fathers had sojourned in the country,
there had been occasional intercourse with the fur-traders and
trappers, and sometimes with friendly-disposed Indians who had called
at the lodges of their white brothers for food and tobacco.

From all these men, rude as they were, some practical knowledge had
been acquired; and their visits, though few and far between, had left
good fruit behind them--something to think about and talk about and
turn to future advantage.

The boys had learned from the Indians how precious were the tough
sinews of the deer for sewing. They knew how to prepare the skins of
the deer for moccasins, which they could cut out and make as neatly as
the squaws themselves. They could fashion arrow-heads, and knew how
best to season the wood for making both the long and cross bow. They
had seen the fish-hooks these people manufactured from bone and hard
wood. They knew that strips of fresh-cut skins would make bowstrings,
or the entrails of animals dried and rendered pliable. They had
watched the squaws making baskets of the inner bark of the oak, elm,
and bass-wood, and mats of the inner bark of the cedar, with many
other ingenious works that they now found would prove useful to them,
after a little practice had perfected their inexperienced attempts.
They also knew how to dry venison as the Indians and trappers prepare
it, by cutting the thick fleshy portions of the meat into strips from
four to six inches in breadth and two or more in thickness. These
strips they strung upon poles supported on forked sticks, and exposed
them to the drying action of the sun and wind. Fish they split open,
and removed the back and head bones, and smoked them slightly, or
dried them in the sun.

Their success in killing the doe greatly raised their spirits; in
their joy they embraced each other, and bestowed the most affectionate
caresses on Wolfe for his good conduct.

"But for this dear, wise old fellow, we should have had no venison for
dinner to-day," said Louis; "and so, Wolfe, you shall have a choice
piece for your own share."

Every part of the deer seemed valuable in the eyes of the young
hunters. The skin they carefully stretched out upon sticks to dry
gradually, and the entrails they also preserved for bow-strings. The
sinews of the legs and back they drew out and laid carefully aside for
future use.

"We shall be glad enough of these strings by-and-by," said careful
Hector; "for the summer will soon be at an end, and then we must turn
our attention to making ourselves winter clothes and moccasins."

"Yes, Hec, and a good warm shanty. These huts of bark and boughs will
not do when once the cold weather sets in."

"A shanty could soon be put up," said Hector; "for even Kate, wee bit
lassie as she is, could give us some help in trimming up the logs."

"That I could, indeed," replied Catharine; "for you may remember, Hec,
that the last journey my father made to the Bay, [Footnote: Bay of
Quinte.] with the pack of furs, that you and I called a _Bee_
[Footnote: A Bee is a practical instance of duty to a neighbour. We
fear it is peculiar to Canada, although deserving of imitation in all
Christian colonies. When any work which requires many hands is in the
course of performance, as the building of log houses, barns, or
shanties, all the neighbours are summoned, and give their best
assistance in the construction. Of course the assisted party is liable
to be called upon by the community in turn, to repay in kind the help
he has received.] to put up a shed for the new cow that he was to
drive back with him, and I am sure Mathilde and I did as much good as
you and Louis. You know you said you could not have got on nearly so
well without our help."

"After all," said Hector thoughtfully, "children can do a great many
things if they only resolutely set to work, and use the wits and the
strength that God has given them to work with. A few weeks ago and we
should have thought it utterly impossible to have supported ourselves
in a lonely wilderness like this by our own exertions in fishing and
hunting."

"If we had been lost in the forest we must have died with hunger,"
said Catharine; "but let us be thankful to the good God who led us
hither, and gave us health and strength to help ourselves."




CHAPTER IV.

    "Aye from the sultry heat,
     We to our cave retreat,
  O'er canopied by huge roots, intertwined,
  Of wildest texture, blackened o'er with age."

  COLERIDGE.


"Louis, what are you cutting out of that bit OF wood?" said Catharine,
the very next day after the first ideas of the shanty had been
started.

"Hollowing out a canoe."

"Out of that piece of stick!" said Catharine, laughing. "How many
passengers is it to accommodate, my dear?"

"I am only making a model. My canoe will be made out of a big pine
log, and large enough to hold three."

"Is it to be like the big sap-trough in the sugar-bush at home?"

Louis nodded assent. "I long to go over to the island; I see lots of
ducks popping in and out of the little bays beneath the cedars, and
there are plenty of partridges, I am sure, and squirrels--it is the
very place for them."

"And shall we have a sail as well as oars?"

"Yes; set up your apron for a sail."

Catharine cast a rueful look upon the tattered remnant of the apron.

"It is worth nothing now," she said, sighing; "and what am I to do
when my gown is worn out? It is a good thing it is so strong; if it
had been cotton, now, it would have been torn to bits among the
bushes."

"We must make clothes of skins as soon as we get enough," said
Hector.--"Louis, I think you can manufacture a bone needle; we can
pierce the hole with the strong thorns, or a little round bone bodkin
that can be easily made."

"The first rainy day we will see what we can do," replied Louis; "but
I am full of my canoe just now."

"Indeed, Louis, I believe you never think of anything else; but even
if we had a canoe to-morrow, I do not think that either you or I could
manage one," said cautious Hector.

"I could soon learn as others have done before me. I wonder who first
taught the Indians to make canoes, and venture out on the lakes and
streams. Why should we be more stupid than these untaught heathens? I
have listened so often to my father's stories and adventures when he
was out lumbering on the St. John River, that I am as familiar with
the idea of a boat as if I had been born in one. Only think now," he
said, turning to Catharine; "just think of the fish, the big ones, we
could get if we had but a canoe to push out from the shore beyond
those rush-beds."

"It strikes me, Louis, that those rush-beds, as you call them, must be
the Indian rice that we have seen the squaws make their soup of."

"Yes; and you remember old Jacob used to talk of a fine lake that he
called Rice Lake, somewhere to the northward of the Cold Springs,
where he said there was plenty of game of all kinds, and a fine open
place where people could see through the openings among the trees. He
said it was a great hunting-place for the Indians in the Fall of the
year, and that they came there to hunt the peccary, which is, as you
know, a kind of wild boar, and whose flesh is very good eating."

"I hope the Indians will not come here and find us out," said
Catharine, shuddering; "I think I should be more frightened at the
Indians than at the wolves. Have we not heard fearful tales of their
cruelty?"

"But we have never been harmed by them; they have always been civil
enough when they came to the Springs."

"They came, you know, for food, or shelter or something that they
wanted from us; but it may be different when they find us alone and
unprotected, encroaching upon their hunting-grounds."

"The place is wide enough for us and them; we will try and make them
our friends."

"The wolf and the lamb do not lie down in the fold together," observed
Hector. "The Indian is treacherous. The wild man and the civilized man
do not live well together, their habits and dispositions are so
contrary the one to the other. We are open and they are cunning, and
they suspect our openness to be only a greater degree of cunning than
their own--they do not understand us. They are taught to be
revengeful, and we are taught to forgive our enemies. So you see that
what is a virtue with the savage is a crime with the Christian. If the
Indian could be taught the Word of God he might be kind, and true, and
gentle as well as brave."

It was with conversations like this that our poor wanderers whiled
away their weariness. The love of life, and the exertions necessary
for self-preservation, occupied so large a portion of their thoughts
and time, that they had hardly leisure for repining. They mutually
cheered and animated each other to bear up against the sad fate that
had thus severed them from every kindred tie, and shut them out from
that home to which their young hearts were bound by every endearing
remembrance from infancy upwards.

One bright September morning our young people set off on an exploring
expedition, leaving the faithful Wolfe to watch the wigwam; for they
well knew he was too honest to touch their store of dried fish and
venison himself, and too trusty and fierce to suffer wolf or wild cat
near it.

They crossed several narrow, deep ravines, and the low wooded flat
along the lake shore, to the eastward of Pine-tree Point. Finding it
difficult to force their way through the thick underwood that always
impedes the progress of the traveller on the low shores of the lake,
they followed the course of an ascending narrow ridge, which formed a
sort of natural causeway between two parallel hollows, the top of this
ridge being in many places not wider than a cart or wagon could pass
along. The sides were most gracefully adorned with flowering shrubs,
wild vines, creepers of various species, wild cherries of several
kinds, hawthorns, bilberry bushes, high-bush cranberries, silver
birch, poplars, oaks, and pines; while in the deep ravines on either
side grew trees of the largest growth, the heads of which lay on a
level with their path. Wild cliffy banks, beset with huge boulders of
red and gray granite and water-worn limestone, showed that it had once
formed the boundary of the lake, though now it was almost a quarter of
a mile in its rear. Springs of pure water were in abundance, trickling
down the steep rugged sides of this wooded glen. The children wandered
onwards, delighted with the wild picturesque path they had chosen,
sometimes resting on a huge block of moss-covered stone, or on the
twisted roots of some ancient gray old oak or pine, whilst they gazed
with curiosity and interest on the lonely but lovely landscape before
them. Across the lake, the dark forest shut all else from their view,
rising in gradual far-off slopes till it reached the utmost boundary
of sight. Much the children marvelled what country it might be that
lay in the dim, blue, hazy distance,--to them, indeed, a _terra
incognita_--a land of mystery; but neither of her companions laughed
when Catharine gravely suggested the probability of this unknown shore
to the northward being her father's beloved Highlands. Let not the
youthful and more learned reader smile at the ignorance of the
Canadian girl; she knew nothing of maps, and globes, and
hemispheres,--her only book of study had been the Holy Scriptures, her
only teacher a poor Highland soldier.

Following the elevated ground above this deep valley, the travellers
at last halted on the extreme edge of a high and precipitous mound,
that formed an abrupt termination to the deep glen. They found water
not far from this spot fit for drinking by following a deer-path a
little to the southward. And there, on the borders of a little basin
on a pleasant brae, where the bright silver birch waved gracefully
over its sides, they decided upon building a winter house. They named
the spot Mount Ararat: "For here," said they, "we will build us an ark
of refuge, and wander no more." And Mount Ararat is the name which the
spot still bears. Here they sat them down on a fallen tree and ate a
meal of dried venison and drank of the cold spring that welled out
from beneath the edge of the bank. Hector felled a tree to mark the
site of their house near the birches; and they made a blaze, as it is
called, on he trees, by cutting away pieces of the outer bark as they
returned home towards the wigwam, that they might not miss the place.
They found less difficulty in retracing their path than they had
formerly, as there were some striking peculiarities to mark it, and
they had learned to be very minute in the marks they made as they
travelled, so that they now seldom missed the way they came by. A few
days after this they removed all their household stores--namely, the
axe, the tin pot, bows and arrows, baskets, and bags of dried fruit,
the dried venison and fish, and the deerskin; nor did they forget the
deer-scalp, which they bore away as a trophy, to be fastened up over
the door of their new dwelling, for a memorial of their first hunt on
the shores of the Rice Lake. The skin was given to Catharine to sleep
on.

The boys were now busy from morning till night chopping down trees for
house-logs. It was a work of time and labour, as the axe was blunt and
the oaks hard to cut; but they laboured on without grumbling, and Kate
watched the fall of each tree with lively joy. They were no longer
dull; there was something to look forward to from day to day--they
were going to commence housekeeping in good earnest; they would be
warmly and well lodged before the bitter frosts of winter could come
to chill their blood. It was a joyful day when the log walls of the
little shanty were put up, and the door hewed out. Windows they had
none, so they did not cut out the spaces for them; [Footnote: Many a
shanty is put up in Canada without windows, and only an open space for
a door, with a rude plank set up to close it in at night.] they could
do very well without, as hundreds of Irish and Highland emigrants have
done before and since.

A pile of stones rudely cemented together with wet clay and ashes
against the logs, and a hole cut in the roof, formed the chimney and
hearth in this primitive dwelling. The chinks were filled with
wedge-shaped pieces of wood, and plastered with clay: the trees, being
chiefly oaks and pines, afforded no moss. This deficiency rather
surprised the boys, for in the thick forest and close cedar-swamps
moss grows in abundance on the north side of the trees, especially on
the cedar, maple, beech, bass, and iron wood; but there were few of
these, excepting a chance one or two in the little basin in front of
the house. The roof was next put on, which consisted of split cedars.
And when the little dwelling was thus far habitable, they were all
very happy. While the boys had been putting on the roof, Catharine had
collected the stones for the chimney, and cleared the earthen floor of
the chips and rubbish with a broom of cedar boughs, bound together
with a leathern thong. She had swept it all clean, carefully removing
all unsightly objects, and strewing it over with fresh cedar sprigs,
which gave out a pleasant odour and formed a smooth and not unseemly
carpet for their little dwelling. How cheerful was the first fire
blazing up on their own hearth! It was so pleasant to sit by its
gladdening light, and chat away of all they had done and all that they
meant to do! Here was to be a set of split cedar shelves, to hold
their provisions and baskets; there a set of stout pegs was to be
inserted between the logs, for hanging up strings of dried meat, bags
of birch bark, or the skins of the animals they were to shoot or trap.
A table was to be fixed on posts in the centre of the floor. Louis was
to carve wooden platters and dishes, and some stools were to be made
with hewn blocks of wood till something better could be devised. Their
bedsteads were rough poles of ironwood, supported by posts driven into
the ground, and partly upheld by the projection of the logs at the
angles of the wall. Nothing could be more simple. The frame-work was
of split cedar; and a safe bed was made by pine boughs being first
laid upon the frame, and then thickly covered with dried grass, moss,
and withered leaves. Such were the lowly but healthy couches on which
these children of the forest slept.

A dwelling so rudely framed and scantily furnished would be regarded
with disdain by the poorest English peasant. Yet many a settler's
family have I seen as roughly lodged, while a better house was being
prepared for their reception; and many a gentleman's son has
voluntarily submitted to privations as great as these from the love of
novelty and adventure, or to embark in the tempting expectation of
realizing money in the lumbering trade,--working hard, and sharing the
rude log shanty and ruder society of those reckless and hardy men, the
Canadian lumberers. During the spring, and summer months these men
spread themselves through the trackless forests, and along the shores
of nameless lakes and unknown streams, to cut the pine or oak
lumber,--such being the name they give to the felled stems of
trees,--which are then hewn, and in the winter dragged out upon the
ice, where they are formed into rafts, and in spring floated down the
waters till they reach the great St. Lawrence, and are, after
innumerable difficulties and casualties, finally shipped for England.
I have likewise known European gentlemen voluntarily leave the
comforts of a civilized home and associate themselves with the Indian
trappers and hunters, leading lives as wandering and as wild as the
uncultivated children of the forest.

The nights and early mornings were already growing sensibly more
chilly. The dews at this season fall heavily, and the mists fill the
valleys till the sun has risen with sufficient heat to draw up the
vapours. It was a good thing that the shanty was finished so soon, or
the exposure to the damp air might have been productive of ague and
fever. Every hour almost they spent in making little additions to
their household comforts, but some time was necessarily passed in
trying to obtain provisions. One day Hector, who had been out from
dawn till moonrise, returned with the welcome news that he had shot a
young deer, and required the assistance of his cousin to bring it up
the steep bank (it was just at the entrance of the great ravine) below
the precipitous cliff near the lake: he had left old Wolfe to guard it
in the meantime. They had now plenty of fresh broiled meat, and this
store was very acceptable, as they were obliged to be very careful of
the dried meat that they had.

This time Catharine adopted a new plan. Instead of cutting the meat in
strips, and drying it (or jerking it, as the lumberers term it), she
roasted it before the fire, and hung it up, wrapping it in thin sheets
of birch bark. The juices, instead of being dried up, were preserved,
and the meat was more palatable. Catharine found great store of wild
plums in a beautiful valley not far from the shanty; these she dried
for the winter store, eating sparingly of them in their fresh state.
She also found plenty of wild black currants and high-bush
cranberries, on the banks of a charming creek of bright water that
flowed between a range of high pine hills and finally emptied itself
into the lake. There were great quantities of water-cresses in this
pretty brook; they grew in bright, round, cushion-like tufts at the
bottom of the water, and were tender and wholesome. These formed an
agreeable addition to their diet, which had hitherto been chiefly
confined to animal food, for they could not always meet with a supply
of the bread-roots, as they grew chiefly in damp, swampy thickets on
the lake shore, which were sometimes very difficult of access.
However, they never missed any opportunity of increasing their stores,
and laying up for the winter such roots as they could procure.

As the cool weather and frosty nights drew on, the want of warm
clothes and bed-covering became more sensibly felt; those they had
were beginning to wear out. Catharine had managed to wash her clothes
at the lake several times, and thus preserved them clean and
wholesome; but she was often sorely puzzled how the want of her dress
was to be supplied as time wore on, and many were the consultations
she held with the boys on the important subject. With the aid of a
needle she might be able to manufacture the skins of the small animals
into some sort of jacket, and the doe-skin and deer-skin could be made
into garments for the boys. Louis was always suppling and rubbing the
skins to make them soft: they had taken off the hair by sprinkling it
with wood ashes, and rolling it up with the hairy side inwards. Out of
one of these skins he made excellent moccasins, piercing the holes
with a sharpened bone bodkin, and passing the sinews of the deer
through, as he had seen his father do, by fixing a stout fish-bone to
the deer-sinew thread. Thus he had an excellent substitute for a
needle; and, with the aid of the old file, he sharpened the point of
the rusty nail, so that he was enabled, with a little trouble, to
drill a hole in a bone needle for his cousin Catharine's use. After
several attempts, he succeeded in making some of tolerable fineness,
hardening them by exposure to a slow, steady degree of heat till she
was able to work with them, and even mend her clothes with tolerable
expertness. By degrees, Catharine contrived to cover the whole outer
surface of her homespun woollen frock with squirrel and mink, musk-rat
and woodchuck skins. A curious piece of fur patchwork of many hues and
textures it presented to the eye,--a coat of many colours, it is true;
but it kept the wearer warm, and Catharine was not a little proud of
her ingenuity and industry,--every new patch that was added was a
source of fresh satisfaction; and the moccasins that Louis fitted so
nicely to her feet were great comforts. A fine skin that Hector
brought triumphantly in one day, the spoil from a fox that had been
caught in one of his dead-falls, was in due time converted into a
dashing cap, the brush remaining as an ornament to hang down on one
shoulder. Catharine might have passed for a small Diana when she went
out, with her fur dress and bow and arrows, to hunt with Hector and
Louis.

Whenever game of any kind was killed, it was carefully skinned, and
the fur stretched upon bent sticks, being first turned, so as to
present the inner part to the drying action of the air. The young
hunters were most expert in this work, having been accustomed for many
years to assist their fathers in preparing the furs which they
disposed of to the fur traders, who visited them from time to time,
and gave them various articles in exchange for their peltries,--such
as powder and shot, and cutlery of different kinds, as knives,
scissors, needles, and pins, with gay calico and cotton handkerchiefs
for the women.

As the evenings lengthened, the boys employed themselves with carving
wooden platters. Knives, and forks, and spoons they fashioned out of
the larger bones of the deer, which they often found bleaching in the
sun and wind, where they had been left by their enemies the wolves;
baskets too they made, and birch dishes, which they could now finish
so well that they held water or any liquid. But their great want was
some vessel that would bear the heat of the fire; the tin pot was so
small that it could be made little use of in the cooking way.
Catharine had made tea of the leaves of the sweet fern,--a graceful
woody fern, with a fine aromatic scent, like nutmegs. [Footnote:
Comptoma asplenifolia, a small shrub of the sweet gale family.] This
shrub is highly esteemed among the Canadians as a beverage, and also
as a remedy against the ague. It grows in great abundance on dry sandy
lands and wastes, by waysides.

"If we could but make some sort of earthen pot that would stand the
heat of the fire," said Louis, "we might get on nicely with cooking."

But nothing like the sort of clay used by potters had been seen, and
they were obliged to give up that thought and content themselves with
roasting or broiling their food. Louis, however, who was fond of
contrivances, made an oven, by hollowing out a place near the hearth
and lining it with stones, filling up the intervals with wood ashes
and such clay as they could find, beaten into a smooth mortar. Such
cement answered very well, and the oven was heated by filling it with
hot embers; these were removed when it was sufficiently heated, and
the meat or roots placed within the oven being covered over with a
flat stone previously heated before the fire and covered with hot
embers. This sort of oven had often been described by old Jacob as one
in common use among some of the Indian tribes in the Lower Province,
in which they cook small animals; they could bake bread also in this
oven, if they had had flour to use. [Footnote: This primitive oven is
much like what voyagers have described as in use among the natives of
many of the South Sea Islands.]

Since the finishing of the house and furnishing it the young people
were more reconciled to their lonely life, and even entertained
decided home feelings for their little log cabin. They never ceased,
it is true, to talk of their parents, and brothers, and sisters, and
wonder if all were well, and whether they still hoped for their
return, and to recall their happy days spent in the home which they
now feared they were destined never again to behold. Nevertheless,
they were becoming each day more cheerful and more active. Ardently
attached to each other, they seemed bound together by a yet more
sacred tie of brotherhood. They were now all the world to one another,
and no cloud of disunion came to mar their happiness. Hector's
habitual gravity and caution were tempered by Louis's lively vivacity
and ardour of temper; and they both loved Catharine, and strove to
smooth as much as possible the hard life to which she was exposed, by
the most affectionate consideration for her comfort; and she, in
return, endeavoured to repay them by cheerfully enduring all
privations, and making light of all their trials, and taking a lively
interest in all their plans and contrivances.

Louis had gone out to fish at the lake one autumn morning. During his
absence a sudden squall of wind came on, accompanied with heavy rain.
As he stayed longer than usual, Hector began to feel uneasy lest some
accident had befallen him, knowing his adventurous spirit, and that he
had for some days previous been busy constructing a raft of cedar
logs, which he had fastened together with wooden pins. This raft he
had nearly finished, and was even talking of adventuring over to the
nearest island to explore it, and see what game and roots and fruits
it afforded.

Bidding Catharine stay quietly within doors till his return, Hector
ran off, not without some misgivings of evil having befallen his rash
cousin, which fears he carefully concealed from his sister, as he did
not wish to make her needlessly anxious. When he reached the shore,
his mind was somewhat relieved by seeing the raft on the beach, just
as it had been left the night before; but neither Louis nor the axe
was to be seen, nor the fishing-rod and line.

"Perhaps," thought he, "Louis has gone further down, to the mouth of
the little creek in the flat east of this, where we caught our last
fish; or maybe he has gone up to the old place at Pine-tree Point."

While he yet stood hesitating within himself which way to turn, he
heard steps as of some one running, and perceived his cousin hurrying
through the bushes in the direction of the shanty. It was evident by
his disordered air; and the hurried glances that he cast over his
shoulder from time to time, that something unusual had occurred to
disturb him.

"Holloa, Louis! is it a bear, wolf, or catamount that is on your
trail?" cried Hector; almost amused by the speed with which his cousin
hurried onward. "Why, Louis, whither away?"

Louis now turned and held up his hand, as if to enjoin silence, till
Hector came up to him.

"Why, man, what ails you? what makes you run as if you were hunted
down by a pack of wolves?"

"It is not wolves, or bears either," said Louis, as soon as he could
get breath to speak; "but the Indians are all on Bare Hill, holding a
war-council, I suppose, for there are several canoe-loads of them."

"How came you to see them?"

"I must tell you that when I parted from you and Cathy, instead of
going down to my raft, as I thought at first I would do, I followed
the deer-path through the little ravine, and then ascending the side
of the valley, I crossed the birch grove, and kept down the slope
within sight of the creek. While I was looking out upon the lake, and
thinking how pretty the islands were, rising so green from the blue
water, I was surprised by seeing several dark spots dotting the lake.
At first, you may be sure, I thought they must be a herd of deer, only
they kept too far apart, so I sat down on a log to watch, thinking if
they turned out to be deer I would race off for you and Wolfe, and the
bows and arrows, that we might try our chance for some venison; but as
the black specks came nearer and nearer, I perceived they were canoes
with Indians in them, three in each. One made for the mouth of the
creek, and ran ashore among the thick bushes, while the others kept
further along the shore. I watched them with a beating heart, and lay
down flat, lest they should spy me out; for those fellows have eyes
like catamounts, so keen and wild--they see everything without seeming
to cast a glance on it. After closely examining what I suppose was one
of our footmarks, I saw them wind up the ridge till they reached the
Bare Hill. [Footnote: Supposed to be a council-hill. It is known by
the name of Bare Hill, from the singular want of verdure on its
surface, It is one of the steepest on the ridge above the little
creek; being a picturesque object, with its fine pine-trees, seen from
Mr. Hayward's grounds, and forms, I believe, a part of his property.]
You remember that spot; we called it so from its barren appearance. In
a few minutes a column of smoke rose and curled among the pine-trees,
and then another and another, till I counted five fires burning
brightly; and, as I stood on the high ground, I could distinguish the
figures of many naked savages moving about, running to and fro like a
parcel of black ants on a cedar log; and by-and-by I heard them raise
a yell like a pack of ravenous wolves on a deer track. It made my
heart leap up in my breast. I forgot all the schemes that had just got
into my wise head of slipping quietly down and taking off one of the
empty birch canoes, which you must own would have been a glorious
thing for us; but when I heard the noise these wild wretches raised, I
darted off, and ran as if the whole set were at my heels. I think I
just saved my scalp." And Louis put his hand to his head, and tugged
his thick black curls, as if to ascertain that they were still safe
from the scalping-knives of his Indian enemies.

"And now, Hec, what is to be done? We must hide ourselves from the
Indians; they will kill us, or take us away with them, if they find
us."

"Let us go home and talk over our plans with Cathy."

"Yes; for I have heard my father say two heads are better than one,
and so three of course must be still better than two."

"Why," said Hector, laughing, "it depends upon the stock of practical
wisdom in the heads; for two fools, you know, Louis, will hardly form
one rational plan."

Various were the schemes devised for their security. Hector proposed
pulling down the shanty and dispersing the logs, so as to leave no
trace of the little dwelling; but to this neither his cousin nor his
sister would agree. To pull down the new house that had cost them so
much labour, and which had proved such a comfort to them, they could
not endure even in idea.

"Let us put out the fire, and hide ourselves in the big ravine below
Mount Ararat; dig a cave in one of the hills, and convey our household
goods thither." Such was Louis's plan.

"The ravines would be searched directly," suggested Hector; "besides,
the Indians know they are famous coverts for deer and game of all
sorts: they might chance to pop upon us, and catch us like woodchucks
in a burrow."

"Yes, and burn us," said Catharine with a shudder. "I know the path
that leads direct to the 'Happy Valley,' (the name she had given to
the low flat now known as the 'Lower Race-course'), and it is not far
from here, only ten minutes' walk in a straight line. We can conceal
ourselves below the steep bank that we descended the other day; and
there are several springs of fresh water, and plenty of nuts and
berries; and the trees, though few, are so thickly covered with
close-spreading branches that touch the very ground that we might hide
ourselves from a hundred eyes, were they ever so cunning and prying."

Catharine's counsel was deemed the most prudent, and the boys
immediately busied themselves with hiding under the broken branches of
a prostrate tree such articles as they could not conveniently carry
away, leaving the rest to chance. With the most valuable they loaded
themselves, guided by Catharine, who, with her dear old dog, marched
forward along the narrow footpath that had been made by some wild
animals, probably deer, in their passage from the lake to their
feeding-place, or favourite covert, on the low sheltered plain, where,
being quite open, and almost, in parts, free from trees, the grass and
herbage was sweeter and more abundant, and the springs of water were
fresh and cool.

Catharine cast many a fearful glance through the brushwood as they
moved onward, but saw no living thing, excepting a family of chitmunks
gaily chasing each other along a fallen branch, and a covey of quails
that were feeding quietly on the red berries of the _Mitchella
repens_, or twinberry, [Footnote: Also partridge-berry and
checker-berry, a lovely creeping winter-green, with white fragrant
flowers and double scarlet berry.] as it is commonly called, of which
the partridges and quails are extremely fond; for Nature with a
liberal hand has spread abroad her bounties for the small denizens,
furred or feathered, that haunt the Rice Lake and its flowery shores.

After a continued but gentle ascent through the oak opening, they
halted at the foot of a majestic pine, and looked round them. It was a
lovely spot as any they had seen: from west to east, the lake, bending
like a silver crescent, lay between the boundary hills of forest
trees; in front, the long lines of undulating wood-covered heights
faded away into mist, and blended with the horizon. To the east, a
deep and fertile valley lay between the high lands on which they
rested and the far ridge of oak hills. From their vantage height they
could distinguish the outline of the Bare Hill, made more distinct by
its flickering fires and the smoke wreaths that hung like a
pearly-tinted robe among the dark pines that grew upon its crest. Not
long tarrying did our fugitives make, though perfectly safe from
detection by the distance and their shaded position, for many a
winding vale and wood-crowned height lay between them and the
encampment.

But fear is not subject to the control of reason, and in the present
instance it invested the dreaded Indians with superhuman powers of
sight and of motion. A few minutes' hasty flight brought our
travellers to the brow of a precipitous bank, nearly a hundred feet
above the level open plain which they sought. Here, then, they felt
comparatively safe: they were out of sight of the camp-fires, the spot
they had chosen was open, and flight, in case of the approach of the
Indians, not difficult, while hiding-places were easy of access. They
found a deep, sheltered hollow in the bank, where two mighty pines had
been torn up by the roots, and prostrated headlong down the steep,
forming a regular cave, roofed by the earth and fibres that had been
uplifted in their fall. Pendent from these roots hung a luxuriant
curtain of wild grape-vines and other creepers, which formed a leafy
screen, through which the most curious eye could scarcely penetrate.
This friendly vegetable veil seemed as if provided for their
concealment, and they carefully abstained from disturbing the pendent
foliage, lest they should, by so doing, betray their hiding-place to
their enemies. They found plenty of long grass, and abundance of long
soft green moss and ferns near a small grove of poplars which
surrounded a spring of fine water. They ate some dried fruit and
smoked fish, and drank of the clear spring; and after they had said
their evening prayers, they lay down to sleep, Catharine's head
pillowed on the neck of her faithful guardian, Wolfe. In the middle of
the night a startling sound, as of some heavy body falling, wakened
them all simultaneously. The night was so dark they could see nothing,
and, terror-stricken, they sat gazing into the impenetrable darkness
of their cave, not even daring to speak to each other, hardly even to
breathe. Wolfe gave a low grumbling bark, and resumed his couchant
posture, as if nothing worthy of his attention was near to cause the
disturbance. Catharine trembled and wept, and prayed for safety
against the Indians and beasts of prey; and Hector and Louis listened,
till they fell fast asleep in spite of their fears. In the morning, it
seemed as if they had dreamed some terrible dream, so vague were their
recollections of the fright they had had; but the cause was soon
perceived. A large stone that had been heaved up with the clay that
adhered to the roots and fibres had been loosened, and had fallen on
the ground, close to the spot where Catharine lay. So ponderous was
the mass, that had it struck her, death must have been the consequence
of the blow; and Hector and Louis beheld it with fear and amazement,
while Catharine regarded it as a proof of Divine mercy and protection
from Him in whose hand her safety lay. The boys, warned by this
accident, carefully removed several large stones from the roof, and
tried the safety of the clay walls with a stout staff, to ascertain
that all was secure, before they again ventured to sleep beneath this
rugged canopy.




CHAPTER V.

"The soul of the wicked desireth evil: his neighbour findeth no favour
in his eyes."--_Proverbs._


For several days they abstained from lighting a fire, lest the smoke
should be seen; but this the great height of the bank would have
effectually prevented. They suffered much cold at night from the
copious dew, which, even on sultry summer evenings, is productive of
much chilling. They could not account for the fact that the air at
night was much warmer on the high hills than in the low valleys; they
were even sensible of a rush of heat as they ascended to the higher
ground. These simple children had not been taught that it is the
nature of the heated air to ascend, and its place to be supplied by
the colder and denser particles. They noticed the effects, but
understood nothing of the causes that ruled them.

The following days they procured several partridges, but feared to
cook them; however, they plucked them, split them open, and dried the
flesh for a future day. A fox or raccoon, attracted by the smell of
the birds, came one night and carried them off, for in the morning
they were gone. They saw several herd of deer crossing the plain, and
one day Wolfe tracked a wounded doe to a covert under the poplars,
near a hidden spring, where she had lain herself down to die in peace,
far from the haunts of her fellows. The arrow was in her throat; it
was of white flint, and had evidently been sent from an Indian bow. It
was almost with fear and trembling that they availed themselves of the
venison thus providentially thrown in their way, lest the Indians
should track the blood of the doe, and take vengeance on them for
appropriating it for their own use. Not having seen anything of the
Indians, who seemed to confine themselves to the neighbourhood of the
lake, after many days had passed they began to take courage, and even
ventured to light an evening fire, at which they cooked as much of the
venison as would last them for several days, and hung the remaining
portions above the smoke to preserve it from injury.

One morning Hector proclaimed his intention of ascending the hills in
the direction of the Indian camp. "I am tired of remaining shut up in
this dull place, where we can see nothing but this dead-flat, bounded
by those melancholy pines in the distance that seem to shut us in."

Little did Hector know that beyond that dark ridge of pine hills lay
the home of their childhood, and but a few miles of forest intervened
to hide it from their sight. Had he known it, how eagerly would his
feet have pressed onward in the direction of that dark barrier of
evergreens!

Thus is it often in this life: we wander on, sad and perplexed, our
path beset with thorns and briers. We cannot see our way clear; doubts
and apprehensions assail us. We know not how near we are to the
fulfilment of our wishes; we see only the insurmountable barriers, the
dark thickets and thorns of our way; and we know not how near we are
to our Father's home, where he is waiting to welcome the wanderers of
the flock back to the everlasting home, the fold of the Good Shepherd.

Hector became impatient of the restraint that the dread of the Indians
imposed upon his movements; he wanted to see the lake again, and to
roam abroad free and uncontrolled.

"After all," said he, "we never met with any ill-treatment from the
Indians that used to visit us at Cold Springs; we may even find old
friends and acquaintances among them."

"The thing is possible, but not very likely," replied Louis.
"Nevertheless, Hector, I would not willingly put myself in their
power. The Indian has his own notion of things, and might think
himself quite justified in killing us if he found us on his
hunting-grounds. I have heard my father say--and he knows a great deal
about these people--that their chiefs are very strict in punishing any
strangers that they find killing game on their bounds uninvited. They
are both merciless and treacherous when angered, and we could not even
speak to them in their own language, to explain by what evil chance we
came here."

This was very prudent of Louis, uncommonly so, for one who was
naturally rash and headstrong; but unfortunately Hector was inflexible
and wilful. When once he had made up his mind upon any point, he had
too good an opinion of his own judgment to give it up. At last he
declared his intention, rather than remain a slave to such cowardly
fears as he now deemed them, to go forth boldly, and endeavour to
ascertain what the Indians were about, how many there were of them,
and what real danger was to be apprehended from facing them.

"Depend upon it," he added, "cowards are never safer than brave men.
The Indians despise cowards, and would be more likely to kill us if
they found us cowering here in this hole like a parcel of wolf-cubs,
than if we openly faced them and showed that we neither feared them
nor cared for them."

"Hector, dear Hector, be not so rash!" cried his sister, passionately
weeping. "Ah! if we were to lose you, what would become of us?"

"Never fear, Kate; I will run into no needless danger. I know how to
take care of myself. I am of opinion that the Indian camp is broken
up; they seldom stay long in one place. I will go over the hills and
examine the camp at a distance and the lake shore. You and Louis may
keep watch for my return from the big pine that we halted under on our
way hither."

"But, Hector, if the savages should see you, and take you prisoner,"
said Catharine, "what would you do?"

"I will tell you what I would do. Instead of running away, I would
boldly walk up to them, and by signs make them understand that I am no
scout, but a friend in need of nothing but kindness and friendship. I
never yet heard of the Indian that would tomahawk the defenceless
stranger that sought his camp openly in peace and goodwill."

"If you do not return by sunset, Hector, we shall believe that you
have fallen into the hands of the savages," said Catharine, mournfully
regarding her brother.

"If it were not for Catharine," said Louis, "you should not go alone;
but if evil were to befall this helpless one, her blood would be upon
my head, who led her out with us, tempting her with false words."

"Never mind that now, dearest cousin," said Catharine, tenderly laying
her hand on his arm. "It is much better that we should have been all
three together; I should never have been happy again if I had lost
both Hec and you. It is better as it is; you and Hec would not have
been so well off if I had not been with you to help you, and keep up
your spirits by my songs and stories."

"It is true; ma chere; but that is the reason that I am bound to take
care of my little cousin, and I could not consent to exposing you to
danger, or leaving you alone; so, if Hec will be so headstrong, I will
abide by you."

Hector was so confident that he should return in safety, that at last
Louis and Catharine became more reconciled to his leaving them, and
soon busied themselves in preparing some squirrels that Louis had
brought in that morning.

The day wore away slowly, and many were the anxious glances that
Catharine cast over the crest of the high bank to watch for her
brother's return. At last, unable to endure the suspense, she with
Louis left the shelter of the valley; they ascended the high ground,
and bent their steps to the trysting-tree, which commanded all the
country within a wide sweep.

A painful and oppressive sense of loneliness and desolation came over
the minds of the cousins as they sat together at the foot of the pine,
which cast its lengthened shadow upon the ground before them. The
shades of evening were shrouding them, wrapping the lonely forest in
gloom. The full moon had not yet risen, and they watched for the first
gleam that should break above the eastern hills to cheer them as for
the coming of a friend.

Sadly these two poor lonely ones sat hand in hand, talking of the
happy days of childhood, of the perplexing present and the uncertain
future. At last, wearied out with watching and anxiety, Catharine
leaned her head upon the neck of old Wolfe and fell asleep, while
Louis restlessly paced to and fro in front of the sleeper; now
straining his eyes to penetrate the surrounding gloom, now straining
his ears to catch the first sound that might indicate the approach of
his absent cousin.

It was almost with a feeling of irritability that he heard the quick
sharp note of the wakeful "whip-poor-will," as it flew from bough to
bough of an old withered tree beside him. Another, and again another
of these midnight watchers took up the monotonous never-varying cry of
"Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will;" and then came forth, from many a
hollow oak and birch, the spectral night-hawk from hidden dens, where
it had lain hushed in silence all day from dawn till sunset. Sometimes
their sharp hard wings almost swept his cheek as they wheeled round
and round in circles, first narrow, then wide, and wider extending,
till at last they soared far above the tallest tree-tops, and
launching out in the high regions of the air, uttered from time to
time a wild shrill scream, or hollow booming sound, as they suddenly
descended to pounce with wide-extended throat upon some hapless moth
or insect that sported all unheeding in mid-air, happily unconscious
of the approach of so unerring a foe.

Petulantly Louis chid these discordant minstrels of the night, and
joyfully he hailed the first gush of moonlight that rose broad and
full and red over the Oak Hills to the eastward.

Louis envied the condition of the unconscious sleeper, who lay in
happy forgetfulness of all her sorrows, her fair curls spread in
unbound luxuriance over the dark shaggy neck of the faithful Wolfe,
who seemed as if proud of the beloved burden that rested so trustingly
upon him. Sometimes the careful dog just unclosed his large eyes,
raised his nose from his shaggy paws, snuffed the night air, growled
in a sort of undertone, and then dozed again, but watchfully.

It would be no easy task to tell the painful feelings that agitated
young Louis's breast. He was angry with Hector for having thus madly,
as he thought, rushed into danger. "It was wilful and almost cruel,"
he thought, "to leave them the prey of such tormenting fears on his
account;" and then the most painful fears for the safety of his
beloved companion took the place of less kindly thoughts, and sorrow
filled his heart. The broad moon now flooded the hills and vales with
light, casting broad checkering shadows of the old oaks' gray branches
and now reddened foliage across the ground.

Suddenly the old dog raises his head, and utters a short half-angry
note: slowly and carefully he rises, disengaging himself gently from
the form of the sleeping girl, and stands forth in the full light of
the moon. It is an open cleared space, that mound beneath the
pine-tree; a few low shrubs and seedling pines, with the slender
waving branches of the late-flowering pearly-tinted asters, the
elegant fringed gentian with open bells of azure blue, the last and
loveliest of autumn flowers and winter-greens, brighten the ground
with wreaths of shining leaves and red berries.

Louis is on the alert, though as yet he sees nothing. It is not a full
free note of welcome that Wolfe gives; there is something uneasy and
half angry in his tone. Yet it is not fierce, like the bark of angry
defiance he gives when wolf, or bear, or wolverine is near.

Louis steps forward from the shadow of the pine branches to the edge
of the inclined plane in the foreground. The slow tread of approaching
steps is now distinctly heard advancing; it may be a deer.

Two figures approach, and Louis moves a little within the shadow
again. A clear shrill whistle meets his ear. It is Hector's whistle,
he knows that, and assured by its cheerful tone, he springs forward,
and in an instant is at his side, but starts at the strange companion
that he half leads, half carries. The moonlight streams broad and
bright upon the shrinking figure of an Indian girl apparently about
the same age as Catharine: her ashy face is concealed by the long mass
of raven black hair which falls like a dark veil over her features;
her step is weak and unsteady, and she seems ready to sink to the
earth with sickness or fatigue. Hector, too, seems weary. The first
words that Hector said were, "Help me, Louis, to lead this poor girl
to the foot of the pine: I am so tired 

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