erroneous name of a creek, that ran through the captain's new estate.
The labour of this ascent was exceedingly severe; but the whole journey
was completed by the end of April, and while the streams were high.
Snow still lay in the woods; but the sap had started, and the season
was beginning to show its promise.

The first measure adopted by our adventurers was to "hut." In the very
centre of the pond, which, it will be remembered, covered four hundred
acres, was an island of some five or six acres in extent. It was a
rocky knoll, that rose forty feet above the surface of the water, and
was still crowned with noble pines, a species of tree that had escaped
the ravages of the beaver. In the pond, itself, a few "stubs" alone
remained, the water having killed the trees, which had fallen and
decayed. This circumstance showed that the stream had long before been
dammed; successions of families of beavers having probably occupied the
place, and renewed the works, for centuries, at intervals of
generations. The dam in existence, however, was not very old; the
animals having fled from their great enemy, man, rather than from any
other foe.

To the island Captain Willoughby transferred all his stores, and here
he built his hut. This was opposed to the notions of his axe-men, who,
rightly enough, fancied the mainland would be more convenient; but the
captain and the sergeant, after a council of war, decided that the
position on the knoll would be the most military, and might be defended
the longest, against man or beast. Another station was taken up,
however, on the nearest shore, where such of the men were permitted to
"hut," as preferred the location.

These preliminaries observed, the captain meditated a bold stroke
against the wilderness, by draining the pond, and coming at once into
the possession of a noble farm, cleared of trees and stumps, as it
might be by a _coup de main_. This would be compressing the
results of ordinary years of toil, into those of a single season, and
everybody was agreed as to the expediency of the course, provided it
were feasible.

The feasibility was soon ascertained. The stream which ran through the
valley, was far from swift, until it reached a pass where the hills
approached each other in low promontories; there the land fell rapidly
away to what might be termed a lower terrace. Across this gorge, or
defile, a distance of about five hundred feet, the dam had been thrown,
a good deal aided