d sit by the fire and feel that "hereabout
are mine own, the people I love?" Rolf knew it now--Van Trumper's was
his home.

Talks of the war, of disasters by land, and of glorious victories on
the sea, where England, long the unquestioned mistress of the waves,
had been humbled again and again by the dauntless seamen of her Western
blood; talks of big doings by the nation, and, yet more interesting,
small doings by the travellers, and the breakfast passed all too soon.
The young scout rose, for he was on-duty, but the long rollers on the
lake forbade the going forth. Van's was a pleasant place to wait, but
he chafed at the delay; his pride would have him make a record on every
journey. But wait he must. Skookum tied safely to his purgatorial post
whined indignantly--and with head cocked on one side, picked out
the very hen he would like to utilize--as soon as released from his
temporary embarrassment. Quonab went out on a rock to bum some tobacco
and pray for calm, and Rolf, ever active, followed Van to look over
the stock and buildings, and hear of minor troubles. The chimney was
unaccountably given to smoking this year. Rolf took an axe and with two
blows cut down a vigorous growth shrubbery that stood above the chimney
on the west, and the smoking ceased. Buck ox had a lame foot and would
allow no one even to examine it. But a skilful ox-handler easily hobbles
an ox, throws him near some small tree, and then, by binding the lame
foot to the tree, can have a free hand. It proved a simple matter, a
deep-sunk, rusty nail. And when the nail was drawn and the place washed
clean with hot brine, kind nature was left in confidence to do the
rest. They drifted back to the house now. Tomas met them shouting out a
mixture of Dutch and English and holding by the cover Annette's book of
the "Good Girl." But its rightful owner rescued the precious volume and
put it on the shelf.

"Have you read it through, Annette?"

"Yes," was the reply, for she had learned to read before they left
Schuylerville.

"How do you like it?"

"Didn't like it a bit; I like 'Robinson Crusoe'," was the candid reply.

The noon hour came, still the white rollers were pounding the shore.

"If it does not calm by one o'clock I'll go on afoot."

So off he went with the packet, leaving Quonab to follow and await his
return at Fort George. In Schuyler settlement he spent the night and at
noon next day was in Albany.

How it stirred his soul to see the