ut
delay. As Nazinred had surmised, it was easily found and not difficult
to follow. That night, however, the party encamped round the hearths of
the deserted village.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

The brief summer had fled, and autumn, with its bright sunshine and
invigorating frosts, had returned to the Far North, when one day, during
that short delightful period styled the Indian summer, our friend
MacSweenie and his inseparable henchman Mowat sauntered down to the
beach in front of the new fort.

"Iss it here the canoe wass lyin', Tonal'?"

"Ay, yonder it is, just beyond the palin', bottom up."

"Man, this iss fine weather--whatever."

"It is that," replied Mowat, who could hardly have replied otherwise,
for the fact did not admit of a doubt.

There was an intense brilliancy yet a hazy softness in the air, which
was particularly exhilarating. Trumpeting wild-geese, piping plover,
the whistling wings of wild-ducks, and the notes of other innumerable
feathered tribes, large and small, were filling the woods and swamps
with the music of autumnal revelry, as they winged their way to southern
lands. Every view was beautiful; all the sounds were cheerful. An
absolute calm prevailed, so that the lake-like expanse in front of the
fort formed a perfect mirror in which the cliffs and brilliant foliage
of the opposite banks were clearly reflected.

"We will go down to the bend o' the ruver," said MacSweenie, as they
launched their canoe, "an' hide in the bushes there. It iss a grand
spote for birds to fly over, an' there's plenty o' ducks an' geese, so
we may count on soon gettin' enough to fill the larder to overflow."

"Ay, there's plenty o' birds," remarked Mowat, with the absent air of a
man whose mind is running on some other theme.

MacSweenie was a keen sportsman, and dearly loved a day with his gun.
As a boy, on his own Highland hills, he had been addicted to sporting a
good deal without the formality of a licence, and the absolute freedom
from conventional trammels in the wild North was a source of much
gratulation to him. Perhaps he enjoyed his outings all the more that he
was a stern disciplinarian--so deeply impressed with a sense of duty
that he would neither allow himself nor his men to indulge in sport of
any kind until business had been thoroughly disposed of.

"It hes often seemed to me," he said, steering towards the bend of the
river above referred to, "that ceevilis