f our friend Harry Somerville. It will be remembered that we
left him labouring under severe disappointment at the idea of having to
spend a year, it might be many years, at the depot, and being condemned
to the desk, instead of realising his fond dreams of bear-hunting and
deer-stalking in the woods and prairies.

It was now the autumn of Harry's second year at York Fort. This period
of the year happens to be the busiest at the depot, in consequence of
the preparation of the annual accounts for transmission to England, in
the solitary ship which visits this lonely spot once a year; so that
Harry was tied to his desk all day and the greater part of the night
too, till his spirits fell infinitely below zero, and he began to look
on himself as the most miserable of mortals. His spirits rose, however,
with amazing rapidity after the ship went away, and the "young
gentlemen," as the clerks were styled _en masse_, were permitted to run
wild in the swamps and woods for the three weeks succeeding that event.
During this glimpse of sunshine they recruited their exhausted frames by
paddling about all day in Indian canoes, or wandering through the
marshes, sleeping at nights in tents or under the pine trees, and
spreading dismay among the feathered tribes, of which there were immense
numbers of all kinds. After this they returned to their regular work at
the desk; but as this was not so severe as in summer, and was further
lightened by Wednesdays and Saturdays being devoted entirely to
recreation, Harry began to look on things in a less gloomy aspect, and
at length regained his wonted cheerful spirits.

Autumn passed away. The ducks and geese took their departure to more
genial climes. The swamps froze up and became solid. Snow fell in
great abundance, covering every vestige of vegetable nature, except the
dark fir trees, that only helped to render the scenery more dreary, and
winter settled down upon the land. Within the pickets of York Fort, the
thirty or forty souls who lived there were actively employed in cutting
their firewood, putting in double window-frames to keep out the severe
cold, cutting tracks in the snow from one house to another, and
otherwise preparing for a winter of eight months duration, as cold as
that of Nova Zembla, and in the course of which the only new faces they
had any chance of seeing were those of the two men who conveyed the
annual winter packet of letters from the next station. Outside of