d, and a few numbers of an American
paper called the _Picayune_.

With these materials he set to work--after each day's labour of
water-drawing, firewood-cutting, and trapping was done--to educate his
army in religion, politics, political economy, and the varied
ramifications of social life. He had intelligent and grateful scholars.
If they had not been so, Macnab would at all events have made them
obedient pupils, for he was a physically large and powerful man--and
might was unavoidably right in those regions!

Still, with all his energy and resources, the genial Highlander began,
towards the end of winter, to feel an intense longing for a little
intercourse with his equals.

Returning one night to the solitude of his little room, as was his wont,
after a couple of hours' intercourse with his men in their own house, he
sat down before his stove and addressed it thus:--

"It won't last long, I fear. My brain is gradually turning into
something like mashed potatoes, and my heart into a tinder-box, ready
enough to catch fire, but with neither flint nor steel to light it! The
Indians won't be here for many weeks, and when they do come what good
can I get from or do to them? Wow! wow! it's terribly slow work. Oh!
Jessie, Jessie, my dear, what would I not give if I only had _you_
here!"

Lest the reader should suppose Macnab to be a love-sick swain, I may
remark here that Jessie was a sister whom he had left on the shores of
Loch Ness, and with whom he kept up a vigorous biennial correspondence.

As the stove made no reply, he continued his address.

"If I only had a few books now, it wouldn't be so hard to bear. To be
sure, the Bible is a great resource--a blessed resource; but you see I
want something light now and then. A laugh, you know, seems to be
absolutely needful at times. Why, now I think of it, we wouldn't have
been given the power to laugh if it hadn't been necessary, and the last
hearty laugh I had was, let me see--that time three months ago, when my
long-nosed interpreter mistook a dead mouse in the soup--ha! ha!--for a
bit of pemmican, and only found out his mistake when the tail got
between his teeth!"

The solitary man burst into peals of laughter at the reminiscence, and
then, becoming suddenly grave, looked slowly round the room.

"If I could only have an echo of that," he resumed, "from somebody else!
Well, well, I'll just go and have another chat with Jessie."

So saying, Macnab rose,