riance, and flowers exhibited their
gem-like tints in the valleys and woods; full streams flowed with rapid
currents, sparkling along; numberless birds flew through the air,
swarmed on the lakes, or perched on the boughs of the forest-trees.

Laurence led the way towards the spot where he and his father had
concealed their traps before they set out to visit the fort, believing
that old Michael would to a certainty have visited them, and hoping to
find some traces beyond showing the direction he had afterwards taken.
Peter agreed with him that this was the best course to pursue. The
journey would take them many days. Although so long a time had elapsed,
from habit Laurence recollected the various landmarks, and was able to
direct his course with great accuracy.

They arrived at length at the spot where the white wolf-skin had been
concealed. It was gone; and from the tracks near it, which an Indian
alone would have observed, Peter was of opinion that Michael must have
removed it. On they went, therefore, over hill and dale, camping at
night by the side of a fire, the warm weather enabling them to dispense
with any shelter, towards the next spot where the wolf traps had been
concealed. These also had been taken, and Peter found the tree to which
the old man had tied his horse while he fastened them on their backs.
They soon reached the wood within which Laurence had assisted to hide
the beaver traps. They also had been removed.

"Now I know that my father intended to begin trapping as soon as the
spring commenced," observed Laurence. "See, he took his way onward
through the wood towards the north, instead of returning by the road he
came."

Laurence and Peter's keen eyes easily distinguished the twigs which the
horses had broken as the old trapper led them through the wood.
Probably he intended to spend the remainder of the winter in a wigwam by
himself, as he often had done, or else in the lodges of some friendly
Crees.

Laurence and Peter now went confidently on, expecting before long to
meet with further traces of the old trapper. The borders of all the
neighbouring lakes and streams were visited, but no signs of his having
trapped there were discovered. Many leagues were passed over, till at
last an Indian village was reached. It consisted not of neat cottages,
but of birch-bark wigwams of a sugar-loaf form, on the banks of a
stream, a few patches of Indian corn and some small tobacco plantations
being