vice is that we should by all means be
happy, and if we can't be happy, be as happy as we can. Is that it?"

"Just so. That's it exactly."

"Ho! But then you see, Hammy, you're a philosopher, and I'm not, and
that makes all the difference. I'm not given to anticipating evil, but
I cannot help dreading that they will send me to some lonely, swampy,
out-of-the-way hole, where there will be no society, no shooting, no
riding, no work even to speak of--nothing, in fact, but the miserable
satisfaction of being styled `bourgeois' by five or six men, wretched
outcasts like myself."

"Come, Harry," cried Hamilton, "you are taking the very worst view of
it. There certainly are plenty of such outposts in the country, but you
know very well that young fellows like you are seldom sent to such
places."

"I don't know that," interrupted Harry. "There's young McAndrew: he was
sent to an outpost up the Mackenzie his second year in the service,
where he was all but starved, and had to live for about two weeks on
boiled parchment. Then there's poor Forrester: he was shipped off to a
place--the name of which I never could remember--somewhere between the
head-waters of the Athabasca Lake and the North Pole. To be sure, he
had good shooting, I'm told, but he had only four labouring men to enjoy
it with; and he has been there _ten_ years now, and he has more than
once had to scrape the rocks of that detestable stuff called _tripe de
roche_ to keep himself alive. And then there's--"

"Very true," interrupted Hamilton. "Then there's your friend Charles
Kennedy, whom you so often talk about, and many other young fellows we
know, who have been sent to the Saskatchewan, and to the Columbia, and
to Athabasca, and to a host of other capital places, where they have
enough of society--male society, at least--and good sport."

The young men had climbed a rocky eminence which commanded a view of the
lake on the one side, and the fort, with its background of woods, on the
other. Here they sat down on a stone, and continued for some time to
admire the scene in silence.

"Yes," said Harry, resuming the thread of discourse, "you are right: we
have a good chance of seeing some pleasant parts of the country. But
suspense is not pleasant. O man, if they would only send me up the
Saskatchewan River! I've set my heart upon going there. I'm quite sure
it's the very best place in the whole country."

"You've told the truth that time, maste