travelling more leisurely when he felt secure from pursuit, and to his
being delayed somewhat by Tony, whom it was obvious he had carried for
long distances at a stretch.

For several days the pursuers went on with unflagging perseverance and
ever-increasing hope, until they at last emerged from the woods, and
began to traverse the great prairie. Here the trail diverged for a
considerable distance southward, and then turned sharply to the west, in
which direction it went in a straight line for many miles, as if
Petawanaquat had made up his mind to cross the Rocky Mountains, and
throw poor Tony into the Pacific!

The travellers saw plenty of game--ducks, geese, plover, prairie-hens,
antelopes, etcetera,--on the march, but they were too eager in the
pursuit of the savage to be turned aside by smaller game. They merely
shot a few ducks to save their pemmican. At last they came to a point
in the prairie which occasioned them great perplexity of mind and
depression of spirit.

It was on the evening of a bright and beautiful day--one of those days
in which the air seems fresher and the sky bluer, and the sun more
brilliant than usual. They had found, that evening, that the trail led
them away to the right towards one of the numerous clumps of woodland
which rendered that part of the prairie more like a nobleman's park than
a wild wilderness.

On entering the bushes they perceived that there was a lakelet embosomed
like a gem in the surrounding trees. Passing through the belt of
woodland they stood on the margin of the little lake.

"How beautiful!" exclaimed Ian, with a flush of pleasure on his sunburnt
face. "Just like a bit of Paradise."

"Did you ever see Paradise, that you know so well what it is like?"
asked Victor of his unromantic friend.

"Yes, Vic, I've seen it many a time--in imagination."

"Indeed, and what like was it, and what sort of people were there?"

"It was like--let me see--the most glorious scene ever beheld on earth,
but more exquisite, and the sun that lighted it was more brilliant by
far than ours."

"Not bad, for an unromantic imagination," said Victor, with much
gravity. "Were there any ducks and geese there?"

"Yes, ducks; plenty of them, but no _geese_; and nobler game--even lions
were there, so tame that little children could lead them."

"Better and better," said Victor; "and what of the people?"

Ian was on the point of saying that they were all--men, women, and
children--