TJie Home of the Wolverejie and Beaver. 59 



he will dole out to you to wash away the 

 indignity. 



The outworks at Osnaburg House had ceased to 

 be required long before Paul's arrival, and the 

 swivels were honeycombed with age, and hardly 

 fit to fire a blank cartridge as a salute. Their 

 day was past. Civilisation, as the term is under- 

 stood by the Hudson's Bay Company, had 

 rendered the poor red man mild and inoffensive 

 enough, some of its phases indeed — small-pox for 

 example — had nearly swept him from the face of 

 the earth. 



Paul was very warmly received by ]\Ir. Groves, 

 to whom his arrival was an inestimable boon. 

 Any of my readers who have been shut up by an 

 unforeseen accident in a country house, and kept 

 for even a few weeks without any news of the 

 outer world, can faintly imagine what a blessing the 

 arrival of a companion was to the dweller by that 

 lonely lake, one, moreover who had just come out 

 from England, and could tell him of all the great 

 changes that had happened since he himself had 

 quitted the little Somersetshire village in which he 

 nad been brought up. Nor was Pierre Lefranc less 

 welcome, for his skill as a trapper and a hunter 

 was known throughout the Company, and the face 

 of the officer wore quite a cheerful expression as he 



