"Who would imagine that it is now more than a month since we lost Catharine!"

"I know it, a long, long, weary month," replied Louis, and he struck his axe sharply into the bark of the pine as he spoke, and remained silent for some minutes. The boys, wearied by chopping down the tree, rested from their work, and sat down on the side of the condemned canoe to resume their conversation. Suddenly Louis grasped Hector's arm, and pointed to a bark canoe that appeared making for the westernmost point of the island. Hector started to his feet, exclaiming, "It is Indiana returned!"

"Nonsense! Indiana!--it is no such thing. Look you, it is a stout man in a blanket coat."

"The Indians?" asked Hector inquiringly.

"I do not think he looks like an Indian; but let us watch. What is he doing?"

"Fishing. See now, he has just caught a fine ba.s.s--another--he has great luck-now he is pushing the canoe ash.o.r.e."

"That man does not move like an Indian--hark! he is whistling. I ought to know that tune. It sounds like the old chanson my father used to sing;" and Louis, raising his voice, began to sing the words of an old French Canadian song, which we will give in the English as we heard it sung by an old lumberer.

"Down by those banks where the pleasant waters flow, Through the wild woods we'll wander, and we'll chase the buffalo.

And we'll chase the buffalo."

"Hush, Louis! you will bring the man over to us," said Hector.

"The very thing I am trying to do mon ami. This is our country, and that may be his; but we are lords here, and two to one--so I think he will not be likely to treat us ill. I am a man now, and so are you, and he is but one, so he must mind how he affronts us," replied Louis laughing.

"I wish the old fellow was inclined to be sociable. Hark, if he is not singing now! aye, and the very chorus of the old song,"--and Louis raised his voice to its highest pitch as he repeated,

"Through the wild woods well wander, And well chase the buffalo-- And we'll chase the buffalo."

"What a pity I have forgotten the rest of that dear old song. I used to listen with open ears to it when I was a boy. I never thought to hear it again, and to hear it here of all places in the world!"

"Come, let us go on with our work," said Hector, with something like impatience in his voice; and the strokes of his axe fell once more in regular succession on the log; but Louis's eye was still on the mysterious fisher, whom he could discern lounging on the gra.s.s and smoking his pipe. "I do not think he sees or hears us," said Louis to himself, "but I think I'll manage to bring him over soon"--and he set himself busily to work to sc.r.a.pe up the loose chips and shavings, and soon began to strike fire with his knife and flint.

"What are you about, Louis?" asked Hector. "Lighting a fire."

"It is warm enough without a fire, I am sure."

"I know that, but I want to attract the notice of yonder tiresome fisherman."

"And perhaps bring a swarm of savages down upon us, who may be lurking in the bushes of the island."

"Pooh, pooh! Hec.:--there are no savages. I am weary of this place--anything is better than this horrible solitude." And Louis fanned the flame into a rapid blaze, and heaped up the light dry branches till it soared up among the bushes. Louis watched the effect of his fire, and rubbed his hands gleefully as the bark canoe was pushed off from the island, and a few vigorous strokes of the paddle sent it dancing over the surface of the calm lake.

Louis waved his cap above his head with a cheer of welcome as the vessel lightly glided into the little cove, near the spot where the boys were chopping, and a stout-framed, weather-beaten man, in a blanket coat, also faded and weather-beaten, with a red worsted sash and worn moca.s.sins, sprung upon one of the timbers of Louis's old raft, and gazed with a keen eye upon the lads. Each party silently regarded the other. A few rapid interrogations from the stranger, uttered in the broad patois of the Lower Province, were answered in a mixture of broken French and English by Louis.

A change like lightning pa.s.sed over the face of the old man as he cried out--"Louis Perron, son of my ancient compagnon."

"Oui! oui!"--with eyes sparkling through tears of joy, Louis threw himself into the broad breast of Jacob Morelle, his father's friend and old lumbering comrade.

"Hector, son of la belle Catharine Perron,--and Hector, in his turn, received the affectionate embrace of the warm-hearted old man.

"Who would have thought of meeting with the children of my old comrade here at the sh.o.r.e of the Rice Lake?--oh! what a joyful meeting!"

Jacob had a hundred questions to ask: Where were their parents? did they live on the Plains now? how long was it since they had left the Cold Springs? were there any more little ones? and so forth.

The boys looked sorrowfully at each other. At last the old man stopped for want of breath, and remarked their sad looks.

"What, mes fils, are your parents dead? Ah well! I did not think to have outlived them; but they have not led such healthy lives as old Jacob Morelle--hunting, fishing, lumbering, trapping,--those are the things to harden a man and make him as tough as a stock-fish--eh! mes enfans, is it not so?"

Hector then told the old lumberer how long they had been separated from their families, and by what sad accident they had been deprived of the society of their beloved sister. When they brought their narrative down to the disappearance of Catharine, the whole soul of the old trapper seemed moved--he started from the log on which they were sitting, and with one of his national a.s.severations, declared "That la bonne fille should not remain an hour longer than he could help among those savage wretches. Yes, he, her father's old friend, would go up the river and bring her back in safety, or leave his grey scalp behind him among the wigwams."

"It is too late, Jacob, to think of starting today," said Hector. "Come home with us, and eat some food, and rest a bit."

"No need of that, my son. I have a lot of fish here in the canoe, and there is an old shanty on the island yonder, if it be still standing,--the Trapper's Fort I used to call it some years ago. We will go off to the island and look for it."

"No need for that," replied Louis, "for though I can tell you the old place is still in good repair, for we used it this very spring as a boiling house for our maple sap, yet we have a better place of our own nearer at hand--just two or three hundred yards over the brow of yonder hill. So come with us, and you shall have a good supper, and bed to lie upon."

"And you have all these, boys!" said Jacob opening his merry black eyes, as they came in sight of the little log-house and the field of green corn. The old man praised the boys for their industry and energy. "Ha!

here is old Wolfe too," as the dog roused himself from the hearth and gave one of his low grumbling growls. He had grown dull and dreamy, and instead of going out as usual with the young hunters, he would lie for hours dozing before the dying embers of the fire. He pined for the loving hand that used to pat his sides, and caress his s.h.a.ggy neck, and pillow his great head upon her lap, or suffer him to put his huge paws upon her shoulders, while he licked her hands and face; but she was gone, and the Indian girl was gone, and the light of the shanty had gone with them. Old Wolfe seemed dying of sorrow.

That evening as Jacob sat on the three-legged stool, smoking his short Indian pipe, he again would have the whole story of their wanderings over, and the history of all their doings and contrivances.

"And how far, mes enfans, do you think you are from the Cold Springs?"

"At least twenty miles, perhaps fifty, for it is a long long time now since we left home, three summers ago."

"Well, boys, you must not reckon distance by the time you have been absent," said the old "Now I know the distance through the woods, for I have pa.s.sed through them on the Indian trail, and by my reckoning as the bee flies, it cannot be more than seven or eight miles--no, nor that either."

The boys opened their eyes. "Jacob, is this possible? So near, and yet to us the distance has been as great as though it were a hundred miles or more."

"I tell you what, boys, that is the provoking part of it. I remember when I was out on the St. John's, lumbering, missing my comrades, and I was well-nigh starving, when I chanced to come back to the spot where we parted; and I verily believe I had not been two miles distant the whole eight days that I was moving round and round, and backward and forward, just in a circle, because, d'ye see, I followed the sun, and that led me astray the whole time."

"Was that when you well-nigh roasted the bear?" asked Louis, with a sly glance at Hector.

"Well, no; that was another time; your father was out with me then."

And old Jacob, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, settled himself to recount the adventure of the bear. Hector, who had heard Louis's edition of the roast bear, was almost impatient at being forced to listen to old Jacob's long-winded history, which included about a dozen other stories, all tagged on to this, like links of a lengthened chain; and was not sorry when the old lumberer, taking his red nightcap out of his pocket, at last stretched himself out on a buffalo skin that he had brought up from the canoe, and soon was soundly sleeping.

The morning was yet grey when the old man shook himself from his slumber, which, if not deep, had been loud; and after having roused up a good fire, which, though the latter end of July, at that dewy hour was not unwelcome, he lighted his pipe, and began broiling a fish on the coals for his breakfast; and was thus engaged when Hector and Louis wakened.

"Mes enfans," said Jacob, "I have been turning over in my mind about your sister, and have come to the resolution of going up the river alone without any one to accompany me. I know the Indians; they are a suspicious people, they deal much in stratagems, and they are apt to expect treachery in others. Perhaps they have had some reason; for the white men have not always kept good faith with them, which I take to be the greater shame, as they have G.o.d's laws to guide and teach them to be true and just in their dealing, which the poor benighted heathen have not, the more's the pity. Now, d'ye see, if the Indians see two stout lads with me, they will say to themselves, there may be more left behind, skulking in ambush. So, boys, I go to the camp alone; and, G.o.d willing, I will bring back your sister, or die in the attempt. I shall not go single-handed; see, I have here scarlet-cloth, beads, and powder and shot. I carry no firewater; it is a sin and a shame to tempt these poor wretches to their own destruction; it makes fiends of them at once."

It was to no purpose that Hector and Louis pa.s.sionately besought old Jacob to let them share the dangers of the expedition; the old man was firm, and would not be moved from his purpose.

"Look you, boys," he said, "if I do not return by the beginning of the rice harvest, you may suppose that evil has befallen me and the girl; then I would advise you to take care for your own safety, for if they do not respect my grey head, neither will they spare your young ones.

In such case, make yourselves a good canoe--a dug-out _[FN: Log canoe.]_ will do--and go down the lake till you are stopped by the rapids; _[FN: Crook's Rapids.]_ make a portage there; but as your craft is too weighty to carry far, e'en leave her and chop out another, and go down to the Falls; _[FN: Heeley's Falls, on the Trent.]_ then, if you do not like to be at any further trouble, you may make out your journey to the Bay _[FN: Bay Quinte.]_ on foot, coasting along the river; there you will fall in with settlers who know old Jacob Morelle--aye, and your two fathers--and they will put you in the way of returning home. If I were to try ever so to put you on the old Indian trail in the woods, though I know it myself right well, you might be lost, and maybe never return home again. I leave my traps and my rifle with you; I shall not need them: if I come back I may claim the things; if not, they are yours. So now I have said my say, had my _talk_, as the Indians say. Farewell. But first let us pray to Him who alone can bring this matter to a safe issue." And the old man devoutly kneeled down, and prayed for a blessing on his voyage and on those he was leaving; and then hastened down to the beach, and the boys, with full hearts, watched the canoe till it was lost to their sight on the wide waters of the lake.

CHAPTER XV.

"Where wild in woods the lordly savage ran."

DRYDEN.