e_ voyageurs. To this arrangement Jacques, after one or two
trials to test their skill, agreed; and very shortly after the arrival
of the express, the trio set out on their voyage, amid the cheers and
adieus of the entire population of Norway House, who were assembled on
the end of the wooden wharf to witness their departure, and with whom
they had managed, during their short residence at that place, to become
special favourites. A month later, the pastor of the Indian village,
having procured a trusty guide, embarked in his tin canoe with a crew of
six men, and followed in their track.

In process of time spring merged into summer--a season chiefly
characterised in those climes by intense heat and innumerable clouds of
mosquitoes, whose vicious and incessant attacks render life, for the
time being, a burden. Our three voyageurs, meanwhile, ascended the
Saskatchewan, penetrating deeper each day into the heart of the North
American continent. On arriving at Fort Pitt, they were graciously
permitted to rest for three days, after which they were forwarded to
another district, where fresh efforts were being made to extend the
fur-trade into lands hitherto almost unvisited. This continuation of
their travels was quite suited to the tastes and inclinations of Harry
and Hamilton, and was hailed by them as an additional reason for
self-gratulation. As for Jacques, he cared little to what part of the
world he chanced to be sent. To hunt, to toil in rain and in sunshine,
in heat and in cold, at the paddle or on the snow-shoe, was his
vocation, and it mattered little to the bold hunter whether he plied it
upon the plains of the Saskatchewan or among the woods of Athabasca.
Besides, the companions of his travels were young, active, bold,
adventurous, and therefore quite suited to his taste. Redfeather, too,
his best and dearest friend, had been induced to return to his tribe for
the purpose of mediating between some of the turbulent members of it and
the white men who had gone to settle among them, so that the prospect of
again associating with his red friend was an additional element in his
satisfaction. As Charley Kennedy was also in this district, the hope of
seeing him once more was a subject of such unbounded delight to Harry
Somerville, and so, sympathetically, to young Hamilton, that it was with
difficulty they could realise the full amount of their good fortune, or
give adequate expression to their feelings. It is,