248 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



How have you been, sir ? Pretty smart, I hope." 

 " Oh, first-rate, thank you, John ; and how are you, 

 and how did you get through the winter, and how is 

 the farm getting on ? " " Pretty well, sir. I killed 

 a fine fat cow moose last December, that kept me 

 in meat most all winter ; farm is getting on 

 splendid. I was just cutting my oats when I got 

 your telegram, and dropped the scythe right there 

 in the swarth, and left. I hear there's a sight of 

 folks going in the woods this fall ; more callers 

 than moose, I guess." And so, after a little con- 

 versation with the other Indians, in the course of 

 which we discover that though they have been 

 there three days, they have never thought of 

 patching up the canoes, and have left the baking- 

 powder or frying-pan or some equally essential 

 article behind, we enter the settler's house, and 

 so to supper and bed. 



The first day is not pleasant. The canoes have 

 to be carted ten miles to the head of the stream 

 we propose descending, and the hay wagon wants 

 mending, or the oxen have gone astray. Patience 

 and perseverance, however, overcome all these 

 and similar difficulties, and at last we are deposited 

 on the margin of a tiny stream ; the settler starts 

 his patient, stolid oxen, over the scarcely per- 



