le odors that excelled the fragrance of summer, as a memory
might outvie the value of the reality, seeming to exhale now from the
forest, and again from the river, and anon from some quality of the
beneficent sunshine, or to exist in ethereal suspension in the charmed
atmosphere. Nature was in such blessed harmony, full of graceful
analogy; a bird would wing his way aloft, his shadow careering through
the sun-painted woods below; a canoe with its swift duplication in the
water would fly with its paddles like unfeathered wings down the
currents of the river; those exquisite traceries of the wintry woods,
the shadows of the leafless trees, would lie on a sandy stretch like
some keen etching, as if to illustrate the perfection of the lovely
dendroidal design and proportion of the growth it imaged; now and again
the voice of herds of buffalo rose thunderously, muffled by distance; a
deer splashed into the river a little above the fort, and gallantly
breasting the current, swam to the other side, while a group of soldiers
standing on the bank watched his progress and commented on his prowess.
No shot followed him; the larders were filled, and orders had been given
to waste no powder and ball.

The newcomers were made most heartily welcome in the settlement near the
fort, as newcomers were apt to be in every pioneer hamlet, whatever
their quality; for the frontiersmen, in their exposed situation,
earnestly appreciated the strength in numbers. But this gratulation was
of course infinitely increased when the arrivals were, like these,
people of character, evidently so valuable an addition to the
community. Finally several of the settlers persisted in carrying off
Sandy to look at a fertile nook where the river swung round in a bend,
earnestly recommending the rich bottom lands for the growth of corn, and
the crest of the hill with a clear free-stone spring for that home he
sought to plant in the far west. Hamish went too,--he could not bear
Sandy to be out of his sight and was "tagging" after him as resolutely
and as unshake-off-ably as when he was four and Sandy was twelve years
of age.

In their absence Odalie and Josephine and the _douce mignonne_ sat on
the doorstep of their latest entertainer, and watched the shadows and
sunshine shift in the woods, and listened to the talk of their hostess.
And here was where the trail of the serpent began to be manifest; for
this old woman was a professed gossip, and Odalie speedily lea