154 WITH GUN AND GUIDE 



canoe and meet him in Mud Lake, a small lake sepa- 

 rated from Nictau by a thoroughfare, a couple of 

 hundred yards in length, and fringed with a dense 

 growth of overhanging bushes ; here their canoes 

 might easily be hidden from view. And so it happened 

 that almost simultaneously, as Nicholas started from 

 the northeast carry down the Penobscot, Sebattis 

 turned his canoe's bow up the Tobique. As, however, 

 nearly three hundred and eighty miles separated them, 

 it was some weeks before the weary messenger, carry- 

 ing the tokens of love and the story of the lover, 

 reached the island rock. Sebattis and his family 

 greeted him warmly and made him royally welcome. 



When time and circumstance permitted, old Nicholas 

 speedily unfolded his tale to Anita, giving her not only 

 the precious birch-bark letter, but presenting her with 

 a necklace of pearls that a countess might envy, which 

 Frank had made himself from gems which he had 

 searched for and found in fresh-water mussels. More- 

 over, at every fitting opportunity when he and Anita 

 were together, the old man, with burning native elo- 

 quence, dilated upon the feats of strength and valor, of 

 skill and endurance, that his son and idol had per- 

 formed ; of his manly beauty, his honesty, his noble 

 character and his high aspirations, so that, although 

 Anita had never seen her lover, she had in her heart 

 his picture as distinct as if photographed by the finest 

 camera in the land. The rude and untutored ambas- 



