uld have done."

CHAPTER XIV

Would They Be Friends?

When Mrs. Burton had gone, Mary set to work to inspect the little
loghouse, and make things comfortable for the night. But there was
not very much that needed doing, and their weeks of river travel
had shorn away so many habits which are the outcome of too much
civilization, that they had come down to a primitive simplicity of
living. The hut contained two small bedrooms, scarcely bigger than
cabins on board ship, one sitting-room, and a lean-to kitchen in
the rear. There was not an atom of paint about the place; it was
all bare, brown wood, restful to the eyes, and in perfect harmony
with the surrounding wilderness.

The boatmen had pitched their tent at the down-river side of the
house, and were sitting round a fire on the ground smoking their
pipes in great comfort and content. Mary had finished her survey
of the inside of her new home, and now wandered outside the house
to see what manner of country lay in the immediate neighbourhood of
Roaring Water Portage. Her father was sitting on a bench by the
hut door, drowsily comfortable with a cigar, and busy with
numberless plans for the future. He was not in a mood for talking
just then, and Mary was glad to be alone for a while.

It was broad daylight still, although the evening was getting on;
but the trees grew so thickly all about the hut that she could see
little beyond trunks and foliage, so, finding a little path which
led upward, she commenced to climb. Great boulders strewed the
ground here between the trees, and although by the sound she knew
herself to be near the river, she could not see it until after a
stiff climb of twenty minutes or so she emerged on an open space
above the falls. Here indeed was beauty enough to satisfy even her
desire for it. The undulating ground all about and below her was
mostly forest-clad, the larches showed in their vivid green against
the sombre hue of the pines, while giant cedars stood out black
against the evening sky. On one side, right away in the distance,
the waters of the bay reached to the horizon, but for to-night Mary
turned her back on the sea; it was the land that charmed her most.

Presently, just where the glory of the sunset reflected itself in
the river, she saw a boat coming skimming down the current. It was
just the touch of life that was necessary to lift the weird
solemnity from those silent forest reaches. From where she stood,
l