strawberry on the end of his prominent feature.

Indeed, it was a wearing night to follow such a trying day!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

DEEP IN THE WILDERNESS WE FIND OUR HOME WHICH IS SHARED WITH THE WILD
BEAST, THE WILD BIRD, AND THE SAVAGE.

Availing myself now of that wonderful power which we possess of
projecting the mind instantaneously through space and time, I will leave
our adventurous fur-traders, and, conveying my reader still deeper into
the heart of the great wilderness, set him down on the margin of one of
those lesser sheets of water which lie some distance in a south-westerly
direction from that mighty fresh-water ocean called Athabasca.

This lake, although small when compared with the vast reservoirs which
stud those northern wilds, is, nevertheless, of goodly dimensions, being
about six miles in diameter, and studded here and there with numerous
islets, some of which are almost bare rocks of a few yards in extent,
while others are not less than a quarter of a mile in circumference, and
thickly wooded to the edge.

It is a somewhat peculiar lake. It does not lie, as many lakes do, in
the bottom of a valley, from which the spectator lifts his eye to
surrounding heights, but rests in a little hollow on a height of land,
from many points of which the eye looks down on the surrounding low
country. It is true, that in one direction, westward, a line of distant
blue hills is seen, which are obviously higher than our lake, for the
land rises gently towards them; but when you ascend a wooded knoll close
by, the summit of which is free from underwood, it is seen at a glance
that on all other sides the land is below you, and your eye takes in at
one grand sweep all round the compass a view of woodland and plain,
mound and morass, lake, river, and rivulet, such as is probably
unequalled--certainly unsurpassed--in any other part of the known world.

Solitude profound--as far as men and their works are concerned--marked
this lovely region at the time of our arrival, though there was the most
telling evidence of exuberant animal life everywhere, to the ear as well
as to the eye; for the air was vocal with the plaintive cries and
whistling wings of wild-fowl which sported about in blissful enjoyment
of their existence, while occasional breaks in the glassy surface of the
water, and numerous widening circles, told that fish were not less
jovial in the realms below. This was at last the longed-for Lake
Wichikagan.