ung face with a trusting
look, as she would have said. "Thy home shall be my home, thy God my
God."

"Well, mon ami, I believe, if my old memory fails me not, I can strike
the Indian trail that used to lead to the Cold Springs over the pine
hills. It will not be difficult for an old trapper to find his way."

"For my part, I shall not leave this lovely spot without regret," said
Hector. "It would be a glorious place for a settlement--all that one
could desire--hill, and valley, and plain, wood and water. Well, I
will try and persuade my father to leave the Cold Springs, and come
and settle hereabouts. It would be delightful, would it not, Catharine,
especially now we are friends with the Indians."

With their heads full of pleasant schemes for the future, our young
folks laid them down that night to rest. In the morning they rose,
packed up such portable articles as they could manage to carry, and with
full hearts sat down to take their last meal in their home--in that home
which sheltered them so long--and then, with one accord, they knelt down
upon its hearth, so soon to be left in loneliness, and breathed a prayer
to Him who had preserved them thus far in their eventful lives, and
then they journeyed forth once more into the wilderness. There was one,
however, of their little band they left behind: this was the faithful
old dog Wolfe. He had pined during the absence of his mistress, and only
a few days before Catharine's return he had crept to the seat she was
wont to occupy, and there died. Louis and Hector buried him, not without
great regret, beneath the group of birch-trees on the brow of the slope
near the corn-field.

CHAPTER XVII.

"I will arise, and go to my father."--_New Testament_.

It is the hour of sunset; the sonorous sound of the cattle bells is
heard, as they slowly emerge from the steep hill path that leads
to Maxwell and Louis Perron's little clearing; the dark shadows are
lengthening that those wood-crowned hills cast over that sunny spot, an
oasis in the vast forest desert that man, adventurous, courageous man,
has hewed for himself in the wilderness. The little flock are feeding
among the blackened stumps of the uncleared chopping; those timbers have
lain thus untouched for two long years; the hand was wanting that should
have given help in logging and burning them up. The wheat is ripe for
the sickle, and the silken beard of the corn is waving like a fair
girl's tresses in the eve