; but a
mild-looking person, in an old shooting jacket and red flannel shirt,
with a straw hat shading his pale coppery complexion. He wield a
tomahawk or march on a war trail! Never. And where was the grim
taciturnity of his forefathers? He answered when spoken to, not in
Mohawk, or Cherokee, or Delaware, but in nasal Yankeefied English; nay,
he seemed weakly garrulous.

'There's another preconceived idea knocked on the head,' said Arthur.
'My glorious ideal Indian! you are fallen, never to rise.'

CHAPTER XV.

ANDY TREES A 'BASTE.'

Door and window were fitted into the holes cut in the front wall of the
shanty, and no carpenter's 'prentice would have owned to such clumsy
joinery; but Arthur was flushed with success, because the door could
positively shut and the window could open. He even projected tables
and chairs in his ambitious imagination, _en suite_ with the bedstead
of ironwood poles and platted bass-work bark, which he had already
improvised; and which couch of honour would have been awarded by common
consent to Mr. Holt, had he not adhered to the hemlock brush with all
the affection of an amateur.

The great matter on the minds of our settlers now, was the underbrushing.
They might calculate on the whole month of November for their work--the
beautiful dreamy November of Canada, as different from its foggy and
muddy namesake in Britain as well may be. Measuring off thirty acres as
next summer's fallow, by blazing the trees in a line around, took up the
best part of a day; and it necessitated also a more thorough examination
of Robert's domains. Such giant trees! One monarch pine must be nigh a
hundred feet from root to crest. The great preponderance of maple showed
that the national leaf symbol of Canada had been suitably selected.

'And is there no means,' quoth Robert, who had been mentally gauging his
small axe with the infinitude of forest--'is there no means of getting
rid of wood without chopping it down?'

'Well, yes, some slower means still; the trees may be "girdled;" that
is, a ring of bark cut from the trunk near the base, which causes death
in so far that no foliage appears next spring: consequently the tall
melancholy skeleton will preside over your crops without injury.'

'Can't say I admire that plan.'

'You are fastidious. Perhaps you would like "niggers" better?'

'I thought they were contraband in any but slave states.'

'Oh, these are "niggers" inanimate--pieces of wood