A ROMANCE OF "OUR LAKE" 163 



But listen ! listen ! both of you lovers, listen ! What 

 noise is that which breaks in upon this sylvan paradise ? 

 Swish, swish, swish; it's the paddle of a canoeman. 

 Nearer and nearer it conies. They fearsomely part the 

 bushes and peer out, and as they do Kasota glides by, 

 looking in every direction for Anita's canoe. Thus 

 warned, they decide that she must take her canoe and 

 paddle over to the great springs, where she will surely 

 be joined by Kasota, and then catch her quota of trout. 

 She is then to return promptly to her rocky home and 

 be ready some time in the early morning of the follow- 

 ing day, when Frank's signal comes, to slip into her ca- 

 noe with such feminine belongings as she may need 

 upon their fateful venture, joining him in an elopement 

 such as would terrify most maidens of either race, red 

 or white. 



Here was the problem before them : In order to pre- 

 vent instant pursuit and give the elopers at least a day's 

 start, it would be necessary that they should loosen the 

 cables of all the canoes and let them drift away during 

 the early hours or take them in tow and leave them 

 somewhere near the entrance to the Tobique River, a 

 good two miles from the island. Four canoes and one 

 pirogue must be spirited away in some such manner. 

 The water of Nictau Lake was too cold for any one to 

 swim in, in order to reach either shore, and the family 

 and their guests would thus be prisoners on the island 

 until the arrival of a passing canoe, or they might, per- 



