sail as soon as the wind will permit, and that we are to be absent a month."

"Perhaps Master Pathfinder can give me a useful hint, for a v'y'ge without an object is never pleasant to an old sailor."

"There is no great secret, Salt-water, concerning ou port and object-though it is forbidden to talk much. about either in the garrison. I am no soldier, however, and can use my tongue as I please, though as little given as another to idle conversation, I hope; still, as we sail so soon, and you are both to be of the party, you may as well be told where you are to be carried. You know that there are such things as the Thousand Islands, I suppose, Master Cap?"

"Aye, what are so called hereaway, though I take it for granted that they are not real islands, such as we fall in with on the ocean; and that the thousand means some such matter as two or three, like the killed and wounded of a great battle."

"My eyes are good, yet have I often been foiled in trying to count them very islands."

"Aye, aye - I've known people who could n't count beyond a certain number. Your real land-birds never know their own roosts, even in a land-fall at sea; they are what I call all things to all men. How many times have I seen the beach, and houses and churches, when the passengers have not been able to see anything but water! I have no idea that a man can get fairly out of sight of land on fresh water. The thing appears to me to be irrational and impossible."

"You don't know the lakes, Master Cap, or you would not say that. Before we get to the Thousand Islands, you will have other notions of what natur' has done in this wilderness."

"I have my doubts whether you have such a thing as a real island in all this region. To my notion, fresh water can't make a bony fidy island; not what I call an island."

"We'll show you hundreds of them. not exactly a

thousand, perhaps, but so many that eye cannot see them all, or tongue count them."

"And what sort of things may they be?"

"Land, with water entirely around them."

"Aye, but what sort of land, and what sort of water? I'll engage, when the truth comes to be known, they'll turn out to be nothing but peninsulas, or promontories, or continents; though these are matters, I dare say, of which you know little or nothing. But islands or no islands, what is the object of the cruise, Master Pathfinder?"

"Why, as you are the sergeant's brother, and pretty Mabel here is his da'hter, and we are all to be of the party, there can be no harm in giving you some idea of what we are going to do. Being so old a sailor, Master Cap, you've heard, no doubt, of such a port as Fronte

"Who has n't? I will not say I've ever been inside the harbor, but I've frequently been off the place."

"Then you are about to go upon ground with which you are acquainted; though how you could ever have got there from the ocean I do not understand. These Great Lakes, you must know, make a chain, the water passing out of one into the other, until it reaches Erie, which is a sheet off here to the westward, as large as Ontario itself. Well, out of Erie the water comes, until it reaches a low mountain-like, over the edge of which

"I should like to know how the devil it can do that?" "Why, easy enough, Master Cap," returned Pathfinder, laughing, "seeing that it has only to fall down hill. Had I said the water went up the mountain, there would have been natur' agin it; but we hold it no matter for water to run down hill - that is, fresh water."

"Aye, aye but you speak of the water of a lake's coming down the side of a mountain; it's in the teeth of reason, if reason has any teeth."

"Well, well; we will not dispute the point; but what I've seen I've seen: as for reason's having any teeth,

I'll say nothing; but conscience has, and sharp ones too. After getting into Ontario, all the water of all the lakes passes down into the sea by a river; and in the narrow part of the sheet, where it is neither river nor lake, lie the islands spoken of. Now, Frontenac is a post of the Frenchers above these same islands; and as they hold the garrison below, their stores and ammunition are sent up the river to Frontenac, to be forwarded along the shores of this and the other lakes, in order to enable the enemy to play his deviltries among the savages, and to take Christian scalps."

"And will our presence prevent these horrible acts?" demanded Mabel, with interest.

"It may, or it may not, as Providence wills. Lundie, as they call him, he who commands this garrison, sent a party down to take a station among the islands, to cut off some of the French boats; and this expedition of ours will be the second relief. As yet they've not done much, though two batteaux loaded with Indian goods have been taken; but a runner came in last week, and brought such tidings that the major is about to make a last effort to sarcumvent the knaves. Jasper knows the way, and we shall be in good hands, for the sergeant is prudent, and of the first quality at an ambushment yes, he is both prudent and alert.”

"Is this all?" said Cap, contemptuously, "by the preparations and equipments, I had thought there was a forced trade in the wind, and that an honest penny might be turned by taking an adventure. I suppose there are no shares in your fresh-water prize-money?"

"Anan?"

"I take it for granted the king gets all in these sogering parties and ambushments, as you call them?"

"I know nothing about that, Master Cap. I take my share of the lead and powder, if any falls into our hands, and say nothing to the king about it. If any one fares better, it is not I; though it is time I did begin to think of a house and furniture, and a home."

Although the Pathfinder did not dare to look at Mabel

while he made this direct allusion to his change of life, he would have given the world to know whether she were listening, and what was the expression of her countenance. Mabel little suspected the nature of the allusion, however; and her countenance was perfectly unembarrassed, as she turned her eyes towards the river, where the appearance of some movement on board the Scud began to be visible.

"Jasper is bringing the cutter out," observed the guide, whose look was drawn in the same direction by the fall of some heavy article on the deck. "The lad sees the signs of wind, no doubt, and wishes to be ready for it."

"Aye, and now we shall have an opportunity of learning seamanship," returned Cap, with a sneer. "There is a nicety in getting a craft under her canvas, that shows the thoroughbred mariner as much as anything else. It's like a soger buttoning his coat, and one can see whether he begins at the top or the bottom."

"I will not say that Jasper is equal to your seafarers below," observed Pathfinder, across whose upright mind an unworthy feeling of envy or jealousy never passed; "but he is a bold boy, and manages his cutter as skillfully as any man can desire, on this lake at least. You did n't find him backward at the Oswego Falls, Master Cap, where fresh water contrives to tumble down hill with little difficulty."

Cap made no other answer than a dissatisfied ejaculation, and then a general silence followed, all on the bastion studying the movements of the cutter with the interest that was natural to their own future connection with the vessel. It was still a dead calm, the surface of the lake literally glittering with the last rays of the sun. The Scud had been warped up to a kedge that lay a hundred yards above the points of the outlet, where she had room to manoeuvre in the river, which then formed the harbor of Oswego. But the total want of air prevented any such attempt, and it was soon evident that the light vessel was to be taken through the passage under her

sweeps. Not a sail was loosened, but as soon as the kedge was tripped, the heavy fall of the sweeps was heard, when the cutter, with her head up stream, began to sheer towards the centre of the current; on reaching which the efforts of the men ceased, and she drifted towards the outlet. In the narrow pass itself her movement was rapid, and in less than five minutes the Scud was floating outside of the two low gravelly points that intercepted the waves of the lake. No anchor was let go, but the vessel continued to set off from the land, until her dark hull was seen resting on the glassy surface of the lake fully a quarter of a mile beyond the low bluff which formed the eastern extremity of what might be called the outer harbor, or roadstead. Here the influence of the river current ceased, and she became virtually stationary.

"She seems very beautiful to me, uncle," said Mabel,. whose gaze had not been averted from the cutter for a single moment, while it had been thus changing its position; "I dare say you can find faults in her appearance, and in the way she is managed; but to my ignorance both are perfect!"

"Aye, aye- she drops down with the current well enough, girl, and so would a chip. But when you come to niceties, an old tar like myself has no need of spectacles, to find fault."

"Well, Master Cap," put in the guide, who seldom heard anything to Jasper's prejudice without manifesting a disposition to interfere, "I've heard old and experienced salt-water mariners confess that the Scud is as pretty a craft as floats. I know nothing of such matters myself, but one may have his own notions about a ship, even though they be wrong notions; and it would take more than one witness to persuade me Jasper does not keep his boat in good order."

"I do not say the cutter is downright lubberly, Master Pathfinder; but she has faults, and great faults."

"And what are they, uncle? if he knew them, Jasper would be glad to mend them."