was a frying-pan, some tin cups, several small packages containing
flour, dried meat, and coffee; a coffee-pot of strong tin, a small
spade, and a light axe, with its curved hickory shaft.

These were the inanimate objects of the picture. Now for the animate.

First, then, were our heroes, the three Boy Hunters--Basil, Lucien,
Francois. Basil was engaged by the tent, driving in the pins; Lucien
was attending to the fire which he has just kindled; while Francois was
making the feathers fly out of a brace of wild pigeons he had shot on
the way. No two of the three were dressed alike. Basil was all
buckskin--except the cap, which was made from the skin of a raccoon,
with the ringed-tail hanging over his shoulders like a drooping plume.
He wore a hunting-shirt with fringed cape, handsomely ornamented with
beads. A belt fastened it around his waist, from which was suspended
his hunting-knife and sheath, with a small holster, out of which peeped
the shining butt of a pistol. He wore deerskin leggings fringed down
the seams, and mocassins upon his feet. His dress was just that of a
backwoods' hunter, except that his cotton under-garments looked finer
and cleaner, and altogether his hunting-shirt was more tastefully
embroidered than is common among professional hunters.

Lucien's dress was of a sky-blue colour. It consisted of a half-blouse,
half-hunting-shirt, of strong cottonade, with trousers of the same
material. He had laced buskins on his feet, and a broad-brimmed Panama
hat on his head. Lucien's dress was somewhat more civilised in its
appearance than that of his elder brother. Like him though he had a
leather belt, with a sheath and knife on one side; and, instead of a
pistol, a small tomahawk on the other. Not that Lucien had set out with
the intention of tomahawking anybody. No; he carried his little hatchet
for cracking rocks, not skulls. Lucien's was a geological tomahawk.

Francois was still in roundabout jacket with trousers. He wore leggings
over his trousers, and mocassins upon his feet, with a cloth cap set
jauntily over his luxuriant curls. He, too, was belted with
hunting-knife and sheath, and a very small pistol hung upon his left
thigh.

Out near the middle of the glade were three horses picketed on
lasso-ropes, so that they might not interfere with each other whilst
browsing. They were very different in appearance. One was a large
brown-black horse--a half-Arab--evidently endowed with