water, it formed a sort of picturesque little port for the post. It was
along the narrow strand that lay between the low height of the fort and
the water of this cove, that the rude buildings just mentioned had been
erected.

Several skiffs, bateaux, and canoes were hauled up on the shore, and
in the cove itself lay the little craft from which Jasper obtained his
claim to be considered a sailor. She was cutter-rigged, might have been
of forty tons burthen, was so neatly constructed and painted as to
have something of the air of a vessel of war, though entirely without
quarters, and rigged and sparred with so scrupulous a regard to
proportions and beauty, as well as fitness and judgment, as to give her
an appearance that even Mabel at once distinguished to be gallant and
trim. Her mould was admirable, for a wright of great skill had sent
her drafts from England, at the express request of the officer who had
caused her to be constructed; her paint dark, warlike, and neat; and the
long coach-whip pennant that she wore at once proclaimed her to be the
property of the king. Her name was the _Scud_.

"That, then, is the vessel of Jasper!" said Mabel, who associated the
master of the little craft very naturally with the cutter itself. "Are
there many others on this lake?"

"The Frenchers have three: one of which, they tell me, is a real ship,
such as are used on the ocean; another a brig; and a third is a cutter,
like the _Scud_ here, which they call the _Squirrel_, in their own
tongue, however; and which seems to have a natural hatred of our own
pretty boat, for Jasper seldom goes out that the _Squirrel_ is not at
his heels."

"And is Jasper one to run from a Frenchman, though he appears in the
shape of a squirrel, and that, too, on the water?"

"Of what use would valor be without the means of turning it to account?
Jasper is a brave boy, as all on this frontier know; but he has no gun
except a little howitzer, and then his crew consists only of two men
besides himself, and a boy. I was with him in one of his trampooses, and
the youngster was risky enough, for he brought us so near the enemy
that rifles began to talk; but the Frenchers carry cannon and ports, and
never show their faces outside of Frontenac, without having some twenty
men, besides their _Squirrel_, in their cutter. No, no; this _Scud_ was
built for flying, and the major says he will not put her in a fighting
humor by giving her men and arms, lest she sho