138 HILLS AND LAKES. 



streams, and stumbling among the tangle brush and 

 boulders. If the Yorkers war'nt tired enough when 

 we got to the lake, you may shoot me. "We'd been 

 all day about that job, and the sight of the waters 

 laying there so bright and still, was a pleasant thing 

 to their eyes. We did'nt mind it much, because we 

 were used to it. With us, a day's work was a day's 

 work, whether in the woods or in the fields. Old 

 Pete and I put up a shantee for the Yorkers, and 

 made them a nice bed of boughs with a smudge before 

 it, to keep off the musquitos and black flies ; we left 

 them sleeping sound enough, and started to procure 

 a mess of trout for supper. 



" The old man had drawn his canoe away out of 

 the water, a month or two before, and hid it away 

 among the brush. From some accident, may be the 

 lightning, the woods had got on fire, and instead of 

 his canoe, we found only a few charred and useless 

 chunks. May be the old man didn't swear some, but 

 t'want no use. The canoe was clean spoilt, and any 

 amount of swearin' wouldn't mend it. It only cost us 

 a hard day's work to make another, which, by the 

 way, we had finished on the next day but one. But 

 for all the loss of the canoe, we did'nt go without our 



