rry," the Captain replied, "I shall not think of shooting here,
where we have the hunter of the Ottawa--the companion of Ollabearqui,
the slayer of moose and panther-cats--ha! ha! Eh, Mr Clare?"

"Well, Captain Mugford, I will accept your kind offer, as I should like
very much to have a few hours' shooting with Walter. I shall try it;
but a fowling-piece and birds on the wing are different things from a
rifle and running game as large as those I used to practise on, and I
imagine that Walter will not commend me as the Indian did," was Mr
Clare's answer.

After the morning lessons and dinner were over, Harry and I stole off
together to make an investigation of last night's mystery. We took our
way to the cove, which was soon to win a name. Although but
three-quarters of a mile from our house, that part of the cape about the
cove was the roughest and most inaccessible quarter in our possessions.
I do not know that any of us ever climbed down to the water there
before. The attractions in every other direction of fishing, bathing,
shooting, and boating were so numerous that we had not carried our
explorations in that direction. You may possibly remember there are
places, sometimes within little more than a stone's-throw of your house,
with which you never think of making acquaintance. Just such a place
was the cove. It did not invite us particularly. It was not on the
route of any of our pleasure expeditions, and, as I have said, there
were points of interest in every other direction. But just above the
cove was a high knob-shaped piece of grass and shrubs, dotted with many
slabs of sharp stones that stood up like tombstones, and made the knoll
look so much like a grave yard that we used to call it "our cemetery."
There the sheep liked to feed just before night. It was a favourite
spot, where they often came for their evening bite.

We crossed that, and commenced a scramble down a jagged, rocky declivity
almost perpendicular. It reminded us of the cliffs in the islands of
Orkney and Shetland, pictures of which, with the men suspended by ropes
getting eggs from the nests that fill the crevices, have interested
every boy in his geography book. With bruised hands and knees, and
rather tattered trousers, we reached a ledge just above the high-tide
mark. The cove was a perfect harbour. A boat there would be defended
from every gale but a south-wester, and partly from that, whilst it
would also be completely hidd