ose it's at least a hundred feet
high: I've seen some a hundred and forty.'

'And you think lumberers have been chopping in these woods? I saw no
signs of them,' said Robert.

'I met with planks here and there, hewed off in squaring the timber: but
even without that, you know, they're always the pioneers of the settler
along every stream through Canada. This lake of yours communicates with
the Ottawa, through the river at the "Corner," which is called "Clyde"
farther on, and is far too tempting a channel for the lumberers to leave
unused.'

The speaker stopped at the foot of a Balm-of-Gilead fir, on the edge of
the swamp, and partially cleared away the snow, revealing a tuft of
cranberries, much larger and finer than they are ever seen in England.

'I noticed a bed of them here the other day. Now if you want a proof of
the genial influence of the long-continued snow on vegetation, I can
tell you that these cranberries--ottakas, the French Canadians call
them--go on ripening through the winter under three or four feet of
snow, and are much better and juicier than in October, when they are
generally harvested. That cedar swamp ought to be full of them.'

'I wonder can they be preserved in any way,' said Robert, crushing in
his lips the pleasant bitter-sweet berry. 'Linda is a wonderful hand at
preserves, and when she comes'--

The thought seemed to energize him to the needful preparation for that
coming: he immediately made a chop at a middle-aged Weymouth pine
alongside, and began to cut it down.

'Well, as to preserving the cranberries,' said Mr. Holt, laughing in his
slight silent way, 'there's none required; they stay as fresh as when
plucked for a long time. But your sister may exercise her abilities on
the pailfuls of strawberries, and raspberries, and sand cherries, and
wild plums, that fill the woods in summer. As to the cranberry patches,
it is a curious fact that various Indian families consider themselves to
have a property therein, and migrate to gather them every autumn, squaws
and children and all.'

'It appears that my swamp is unclaimed, then,' said Robert, pausing in
his blows.

'Not so with your maples,' rejoined the other; 'there's been a sugar
camp here last spring, or I'm much mistaken.'

He was looking at some old scars in the trunks of a group of maples, at
the back of the Weymouth pine on which Robert was operating.

'Yes, they've been tapped, sure enough; but I don't see the _loupes_-