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 blockhouse near the fort; and
the shot, one of light 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 the
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, wi