t into the big
boat and towed her. Marks, Pat, and Tommy took the oars while Tony
steered.

"Well, Pat, how did it happen?" asked Marks.

"Why, do you see, Pater and I was going to do some work for a new
settler at the farther end of the lake, and so we hired a boat to make a
short cut--a long cut it'll be for Pater, seeing he'll never get there;
och, ahone, ahone! Says Pater, `We'll not do without provisions, Pat,
and so I'll be after getting _Home_, and jist a drop of whiskey to wash
them down.' I axes him if he'd got them all right. `All right,' says
he, as we shoved off. All right it wasn't though, for when I came to
axe for some bread and cheese and a slice of pork, he hadn't got any.
Indeed, faith, he'd forgotten all else but a big bottle of the cratur.
`It's a bad bargain,' says I; but I thought we'd make the best of it.
We rowed, and we took a pull at the bottle, and we rowed again, and then
another pull; but Pater took two pulls for my one--worse luck for him,--
and so we went on till somehow or other we both fell asleep. When we
woke up, there we were in the middle of a rice-bed. How to get out was
a hard job, when Pater, in trying to shove with the oar, fell overboard.
I caught him by one leg just as he was going to be drownded entirely,
but he was little better than a mass of ice in a few minutes, in spite
of the whiskey inside of him. I at last got him on shore, and covered
him up with a blanket, but before long he was as stiff as an icicle, and
though I shouted as loud as I could, and bate him with a big stick, I
couldn't make him hear or feel. Ahone, ahone! och the whiskey! I'd
rather that never a drop should pass my lips again, than to die as Pater
Disney."

Several families of Irish had lately arrived at the settlement, to some
of whom Peter Disney was related.

As soon as Pat Honan drew near the shore, where many of them were
standing watching the boat, he shouted out that Peter was dead.
Forthwith they set up a fearful howl, in which others as they came up
joined them, till the whole party were howling away in concert, led by
Pat, who cried out, "Ah, it was drink--the cratur,--'twas drink, drink
that did it."

Rob and Susan had arrived safely with the sleigh. As soon as the ground
hardened, Rob set off in the canoe, and brought the luggage-sleigh home
by the snow road formed through the woods, along the borders of the
lake.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER 7.

Though most out-of-door wor