e, 'it seemed to me
that chap had fixed himself in a hole barely big enough, to judge by the
way he wriggled out.'

'Very likely. "Bears are the knowingest varmint in all creation," as
Uncle Zack would say. They sometimes watch for days before entering a
tree, and then choose the smallest opening possible, for warmth's sake,
and scrape up brush and moss to conceal themselves. I've known the
hollow tree to be such a tight fit that the hunters were compelled to
cut it open to get at the bear after he was shot. I suspect the heat of
our fire had roused this one, even before Andy pulled away the brush, or
he wouldn't ha' been so lively.'

'What's the meat like, Holt? I hope it don't taste carnivorous.'

'You'll hardly know it from beef, except that the shorter grain makes it
tenderer; for the bear lives on the best products of the forest. He'll
sit on his haunches before a serviceberry tree, bend the branches with
his paws, and eat off the red fruit wholesale. He'll grub with his
claws for the bear potatoes, and chew them like tobacco. He'll pick the
kernels out of nuts, and help himself to your maize and fall wheat when
you have them, as well as to your sucking pigs and yearly calves.'

'Then we may fairly eat him in return,' said Robert; 'but I'll leave the
paws to you and Arthur.'

'Thank you for the monopoly. Now these knives are sufficiently sharp.'
Sam Holt had been putting an edge on them at the grindstone during his
talk. 'Come and have your lesson in fur-making, for I must be off.'

'Off! oh, nonsense; not to-day,' exclaimed both. But he was quite
unpersuadeable when once his plan was fixed. He took the stage at
Greenock that afternoon.

CHAPTER XXII.

SILVER SLEIGH-BELLS.

The shanty was ere long lined in a comely manner with the planks which
had journeyed up the pond in the ice-boat, affording many an evening's
work for Arthur. About Christmas all was right and tight.

Now, to those who have any regrets or sadnesses in the background of
memory, the painfullest of all times are these anniversaries. One is
forced round face to face with the past and the unalterable, to gaze on
it, perchance, through blinding tears. The days return--unchanged: but,
oh, to what changed hearts!

Were they not thinking of the Canadian exiles to-day, at home, at dear
old Dunore? For nothing better than exiles did the young men feel
themselves, this snow-white Christmas morning, in the log-hut among the
backwoods, w