forest verdure. Suddenly an opening appeared ahead, and then the massive walls of a château-looking house, with outworks, bastions, block-houses, and palisadoes, frowned on a headland that bordered the outlet of a broad stream. Just as the fort became visible, a little cloud rose over it, and the white ensign of France was seen fluttering from a lofty flag-staff.

Cap gave an ejaculation as he witnessed this ungrateful exhibition, and he cast a quick suspicious glance at his brotherin-law.

"The dirty table-cloth hung up to the air, as my name is Charles Cap!" he muttered, “and we hugging this d—d shore, as it were our wife and children, met on the return from an India v'y'ge! Harkee, Jasper, are you in search of a cargo of frogs, that you keep so near in to this New France ?"

"I hug the land, sir, in the hope of passing the enemy's ship without being seen, for I think she must be somewhere down here to leeward."

"Ay, ay; this sounds well, and I hope it may turn out es you say. I trust there is no under-tow here ?”

"We are on a weather shore, now," said Jasper, smiling; "and I think you will admit, Master Cap, that a strong undertow makes an easy cable: we owe all our lives to the under-tow of this very lake."

"French flummery!" growled Cap, though he did not care to be heard by Jasper. "Give me a fair, honest, English-YankeeAmerican tow, above board, and above water too, if I must have a tow at all, and none of your sneaking drift that is below the surface, where one can neither see nor feel. I dare say, if the truth could be come at, that this late escape of ours was all a contrived affair."

"We have now a good opportunity, at least, to reconnoitre the enemy's post at Niagara, brother, for such I take this fort to be," put in the serjeant. "Let us be all eyes in passing, and remember that we are almost in the face of the enemy."

This advice of the serjeant's needed nothing to enforce it, for the interest and novelty of passing a spot occupied by human

beings, were of themselves sufficient to attract deep attention in that scene of a vast but deserted nature. The wind was now fresh enough to urge the Scud through the water with considerable velocity, and Jasper eased her helm as she opened the river, and luffed nearly into the mouth of that noble strait, or river, as it is termed. A dull, distant, heavy roar came down through the opening in the banks, swelling on the currents of the air, like the deeper notes of some immense organ, and occasionally seeming to cause the earth itself to tremble.

"That sounds like surf on some long unbroken coast!" exclaimed Cap, as a swell deeper than common came to his

ears.

"Ay, that is such surf as we have in this quarter of the world," Pathfinder answered. "There is no under-tow there, Master Cap, but all the water that strikes the rocks stays there, so far as going back ag'in is consarned. That is old Niagara that you hear, or this noble stream tumbling down a mountain!"

"No one will have the impudence to pretend that this fine broad river falls over yonder hills ?"

"It does, Master Cap, it does; and all for the want of stairs, or a road, to come down by. This is natur', as we have it up hereaway, though I dare say you beat us down on the ocean. Ah's me! Mabel; a pleasant hour it would be if we could walk on the shore some ten or fifteen miles this stream, and gaze on all that God has done there !"

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"You have, then, seen these renowned falls, Pathfinder ?" the girl eagerly inquired.

"I have-yes, I have; and an awful sight I witnessed at that same time. The Sarpent and I were out, scouting about the garrison there, when he told me that the traditions of his people gave an account of a mighty cataract in this neighborhood, and he asked me to vary from the line of march a little to look at the wonder. I had heard some marvels consarning the spot, from the soldiers of the 60th, which is my nat❜ral corps like, and not the 55th, with which I have sojourned so much of late; but there are so many terrible liars in all rijiments,

that I hardly believed half they told me. Well, we went; and though we expected to be led by our ears, and to hear some of that awful roaring that we hear to-day, we were disapp'inted, for natur' was not then speaking in thunder, as she is this morning. Thus it is, in the forest, Master Cap; there being moments when God seems to be walking abroad in power, and then, again, there is a calm over all, as if his spirit lay in quiet along the 'arth. Well, we came suddenly upon the stream, a short distance above the fall, and a young Delaware, who was in our company, found a bark canoe, and he would push into the current, to reach an island that lies in the very centre of the confusion and strife. We told him of his folly, we did, and we reasoned with him on the wickedness of tempting Providence by seeking danger that led to no ind; but the youth among the Delawares are very much the same as the youth among the soldiers, risky and vain. All we could say did not change his mind, and the lad had his way. To me it seems, Mabel, that whenever a thing is really grand and potent, it has a quiet majesty about it, that is altogether unlike the frothy and flustering manner of smaller matters, and so it was with them rapids. The canoe was no sooner fairly in them, than down it went, as it might be, as one sails through the air on the 'arth, and no skill of the young Delaware could resist the stream. And yet he struggled manfully for life, using the paddle to the last, like the deer that is swimming to cast the hounds. At first, he shot across the current so swiftly that we thought he would prevail, but he had miscalculated his distance, and when the truth really struck him, he turned the head up stream, and struggled in a way that was fearful to look at. I could have pitied him even had he been a Mingo! For a few moments his efforts were so frantic, that he actually prevailed over the power of the cataract; but natur' has its limits, and one faltering stroke of the paddle set him back, and then he lost ground, foot by foot, inch by inch, until he got near the spot where the river looked even and green, and as if it were made of millions of threads of water, all bent over some huge rock, when he shot

backwards like an arrow and disappeared, the bow of the canoe tipping just enough to let us see what had become of him. I met a Mohawk, some years later, who had witnessed the whole affair from the bed of the stream below, and he told me that the Delaware continued to paddle in the air, until he was lost in the mists of the falls !"

"And what became of the poor wretch ?" demanded Mabel, who had been strongly interested by the natural eloquence of the speaker.

"He went to the happy hunting-grounds of his people, no doubt; for though he was risky and vain, he was also just and brave. Yes, he died foolishly, but the Manitou of the red-skins has compassion on his creatur's as well as the God of a Christian!"

A gun at this moment was discharged from a block-house near the fort, and the shot, one of little weight, came whistling over the cutter's mast, an admonition to approach no nearer. Jasper was at the helm, and he kept away, smiling at the same time as if he felt no anger at the rudeness of the salutation. The Scud was now in the current, and her outward set soon carried her far enough to leeward to avoid the danger of a repetition of the shot, and then she quietly continued her course along the land. As soon as the river was fairly opened, Jasper ascertained that the Montcalm was not at anchor in it; and a man sent aloft came down with the report that the horizon showed no sail. The hope was now strong that the artifice of Jasper had succeeded, and that the French commander had. missed them by keeping the middle of the lake as he steered towards its head.

All that day the wind hung to the southward, and the cutter continued her course about a league from the land, running six or eight knots an hour in perfectly smooth water. Although the scene had one feature of monotony, the outline of unbroken forest, it was not without its interest and pleasures. Various headlands presented themselves, and the cutter, in running from one to another, stretched across bays so deep as almost to

deserve the name of gulfs, but nowhere did the eye meet with the evidences of civilization. Rivers occasionally poured their tribute into the great reservoir of the lake, but their banks could be traced inland for miles by the same outlines of trees; and even large bays that lay embosomed in woods, communicating with Ontario only by narrow outlets, appeared and disappeared without bringing with them a single trace of a human habitation.

Of all on board the Pathfinder viewed the scene with the most unmingled delight. His eyes feasted on the endless line of forest, and, more than once that day, notwithstanding he found it so grateful to be near Mabel, listening to her pleasant voice, and echoing, in feelings at least, her joyous laugh, did his soul pine to be wandering beneath the high arches of the maples, oaks, and lindens, where his habits had induced him to fancy lasting and true joys were only to be found. Cap viewed the prospect differently. More than once he expressed his disgust at there being no light-houses, church-towers, beacons, or roadsteads with their shipping. Such another coast, he protested, the world did not contain; and taking the serjeant aside, he gravely assured him that the region could never come to anything, as the havens were neglected, the rivers had a deserted and useless look, and that even the breeze had a smell of the forest about it, which spoke ill of its properties.

But the humors of the different individuals in her did not stay the speed of the Scud. When the sun was setting, she was already a hundred miles on her route towards Oswego, into which river Serjeant Dunham now thought it his duty to go, in order to receive any communications that Major Duncan might please to make. With a view to effect this purpose, Jasper continued to hug the shore all night; and though the wind began to fail him towards morning, it lasted long enough to carry the cutter up to a point that was known to be but a league or two from the fort. Here the breeze came out light at the northward, and the cutter hauled a little from the land in order to obtain a safe offing should it come on to blow, or should the weather again get to be easterly.