d's own care, than to be kings and
princes at the mercy of bad and sinful men."

"Who told your father all these things, Hec?" said Louis.

"It was the son of his brave colonel, who knew a great deal about
the history of the Stuart kings, for our colonel had been with Prince
Charles, the young chevalier, and fought by his side when he was in
Scotland; he loved him dearly, and, after the battle of Culloden, where
the Prince lost all, and was driven from place to place, and had not
where to lay his head, he went abroad in hopes of better times; (but
those times did not come for the poor Prince; and our colonel) after a
while, through the friendship of General Wolfe, got a commission in the
army that was embarking for Quebec, and, at last, commanded the regiment
to which my father belonged. He was a kind man, and my father loved both
him and his son, and grieved not a little when he parted from him."

"Well," said Catharine, "as you have told me such a nice story, Mister
Hec, I shall forgive the affront about my curls."

"Well, then, to-morrow we are to try our luck at fishing, and if we
fail, we will make us bows and arrows to kill deer or small game; I
fancy we shall not be over particular as to its of quality. Why should
not we be able to find subsistence as well as the wild Indians?"

"True," said Hector, "the wild men of the wilderness, and the animals
and birds, all are fed by the things that He provideth; then, wherefore
should His white children fear?"

"I have often heard my father tell of the privations of the lumberers,
when they have fallen short of provisions, and of the contrivances of
himself and old Jacob Morelle, when they were lost for several days,
nay, weeks I believe it was. Like the Indians, they made themselves bows
and arrows, using the sinews of the deer, or fresh thongs of leather,
for bow-strings; and when they could not get game to eat, they boiled
the inner bark of the slippery elm to jelly, or birch bark, and drank
the sap of the sugar maple when they could get no water but melted
snow only, which is unwholesome; at last, they even boiled their own
mocassins."

"Indeed, Louis, that must have been a very unsavoury dish," said
Catharine.

"That old buckskin vest would have made a famous pot of soup of itself,"
added Hector, "or the deer-skin hunting shirt." "Well, they might have
been reduced even to that," said Louis, laughing, "but for the good
fortune that befel them in the way of a