at was enough food for each day. A small hatchet would
be useful, but his rifle seemed too heavy to carry; as he halted in
doubt, a junior officer offered him a pistol instead, and he gladly
stuck it in his belt.

Taller than ever, considerably over six feet now, somewhat lanky, but
supple of joint and square of shoulder, he strode with the easy stride
of a strong traveller. His colour was up, his blue-gray eyes ablaze
as he took the long trail in a crow line across country for Sackett's
Harbour. The sentry saluted, and the officer of the day, struck by his
figure and his glowing face as much as by the nature of his errand,
stopped to shake hands and say, "Well, good luck, Kittering, and may you
bring us better news than the last two times."

Rolf knew how to travel now; he began softly. At a long, easy stride he
went for half an hour, then at a swinging trot for a mile or two. Five
miles an hour he could make, but there was one great obstacle to speed
at this season--every stream was at flood, all were difficult to cross.
The brooks he could wade or sometimes could fell a tree across them, but
the rivers were too wide to bridge, too cold and dangerous to swim. In
nearly every case he had to make a raft. A good scout takes no chances.
A slight raft means a risky passage; a good one, a safe crossing but
loss of time in preparations. Fifteen good rafts did Rolf make in that
cross-country journey of three days: dry spruce logs he found each time
and bound them together with leather-wood and withes of willow. It meant
a delay of at least an hour each time; that is five hours each day. But
the time was wisely spent. The days were lengthening; he could travel
much at dusk. Soon he was among settlements. Rumours he got at a
settler's cabin of Sir George Prevost's attack on Sackett's Harbour and
the gallant repulse and at morning of the fourth day he came on the hill
above Sackett's Harbour--the same hill where he had stood three months
before. It was with something like a clutching of his breath that he
gazed; his past experiences suggested dreadful thoughts but no--thank
God, "Old Glory" floated from the pole. He identified himself to the
sentinels and the guard, entered the fort at a trot, and reported at
headquarters.

There was joy on every side. At last the tide had turned. Commodore
Chauncey, after sweeping Lake Ontario, had made a sudden descent on York
(Toronto now) the capital of Upper Canada, had seized and destroy