rating sound of the canoe as it was
vigorously pushed up on the shingly beach, beneath the friendly shelter
of the overhanging trees, where, perfectly exhausted by the exertions
they had made, dripping with rain and overpowered by the terrors of the
storm, they threw themselves on the ground, and in safety watched its
progress--thankful for an escape from such imminent peril.

Thus ended the Indian summer--so deceitful in its calmness and its
beauty. The next day saw the ground white with snow, and hardened into
stone by a premature frost. Our poor voyagers were not long in quitting
the shelter of the Beaver Island, and betaking them once more to their
ark of refuge--the log-house on Mount Ararat.

The winter, that year, set in with unusual severity some weeks sooner
than usual, so that from the beginning of November to the middle of
April the snow never entirely left the ground. The lake was soon covered
with ice, and by the month of December it was one compact solid sheet
from shore to shore.

CHAPTER X.

"Scared by the red and noisy light."--COLERIDGE.

Hector and Louis had now little employment, excepting chopping
fire-wood, which was no very arduous task for two stout healthy lads,
used from childhood to handling the axe. Trapping, and hunting,
and snaring hares, were occupations which they pursued more for the
excitement and exercise than from hunger, as they had laid by abundance
of dried, venison, fish, and birds, besides a plentiful store of rice.
They now visited those trees that they had marked in the summer, where
they had noticed the bees hiving, and cut them down; in one they got
more than a pailful of rich honey-comb, and others yielded some more,
some less; this afforded them a delicious addition to their boiled
rice, and dried acid fruits. They might have melted the wax, and burned
candles of it; but this was a refinement of luxury that never once
occurred to our young house-keepers: the dry pine knots that are found
in the woods are the settlers' candles; but Catharine made some very
good vinegar with the refuse of the honey and combs, by pouring water on
it, and leaving it to ferment in a warm nook of the chimney, in one of
the birch-bark vessels, and this was an excellent substitute for salt as
a seasoning to the fresh meat and fish. Like the Indians, they were now
reconciled to the want of this seasonable article.

Indiana seemed to enjoy the cold weather; the lake, though locked up
t