od. You ain't lookin' partic'ler spry, anyhow. Now, Arthur, doen't,
poor lad, doen't.'

For he could not speak during a minute or two; his arm pressed heavily
on the backwoodsman's sturdy shoulder, in the effort to steady the
strong trembling that shook him from head to foot like a spasm of ague.

'Lost in the bush, you war? Well, that ain't agreeable nohow exactly;'
and Peter betook himself to a fumbling in his capacious pocket for a tin
flask, containing some reviving fluid. 'Here, take a pull--this'll fix
you all right. Warn't it wonderful that I went my road of traps when I
did, instead of early this mornin'. There's a providence in that, for
sartin.'

Deep in Arthur's heart he acknowledged the same truth gratefully.

'You've got a plaguy touch of ague, likely,' added Peter considerately,
willing to shift the responsibility of that trembling from the mind to
the body. 'Campin' out is chill enough these nights. I han't much furder
to go to the end of my blaze, and then I'll be back with you. So will
you wait or come along?'

Arthur had too lately found human company to be willing to relinquish
it, even with certainty of its return; he dreaded nothing so much as the
same solitude whence he had just emerged; therefore he followed Peter,
who over his shoulder carried a bag containing various bodies of minks,
fishers, and other furry animals, snared in his traps, and subsequently
knocked on the head by his tough service-rod.

That night Arthur found comfortable shelter in Peter's hut, and was
initiated into many mysteries of a trapper's life by him and his
half-Indian assistant. Next morning they guided him as far as a
surveyor's post, on which was legibly written the names of four
townships, which was the signal for the separation of the party. Arthur
turned his face towards civilisation, along a blazed boundary line. The
others plunged deeper into the woods, walking in the unsociable Indian
file.

The blazed line went on fairly enough for some miles, over hillocks of
hardwood, and across marshes of dank evergreens, where logs had been
laid lengthwise for dry footing. At last Arthur thought he must be
drawing near to a clearing, for light appeared through the dense veil
of trees before him, as if some extensive break to the vast continuity
of forest occurred beyond. Soon he stood on its verge. Ay, surely a
clearing; but no human hands had been at work.

Hundreds of huge trees lay strewn about, as if they had be