A NEW SOUND IN THE FOBEST. 95 



Chazy and near the outlet, a half-breed, that is, half French 

 and half Indian, had built him a log cabin, and cleared 

 about an acre of land around it. His live stock consisted 

 of two homely, lean, and half-starved dogs, and as ragged 

 and ill-looking a donkey as could be found in a week's 

 travel. The half-breed was a sort of half fisherman and 

 half hunter, excelling in nothing, unless it be that he was 

 the laziest man this side of the Rocky Mountains. He suc- 

 ceeded, occasionally, in killing a deer in the forest, and 

 when he did so, he would lead his donkey to the place of 

 slaughter, and bring in the carcase on the long-eared ani- 

 mal's back. 



" We were passing from the Chazy to Bradley's Lake, 

 and had sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree to take a 

 short breathing spell. It was a warm afternoon, and the 

 air was calm; not a breath stirred the leaves on the old 

 trees around us; the forest sounds were hushed, save the 

 tap of the woodpecker on his hollow tree, or an occasional 

 drumming of a partridge on his log. It was drawing 

 towards one of those calm, still, autumnal evenings of which 

 poets sing, but which are to be met with in all their glory 

 only anlong the beautiful lakes that" lay sleeping in the wild 

 woods, and surrounded by old primeval things. The path 

 wound round a densely wooded and sombre hollow, the 

 depths of which the eye could not p enetrate, but from out 

 of which came the song of a stream that went cascading 

 down the rocks, and rippling among the loose boulders that 



