gh the sky, and taking advantage of all
prominent landmarks on the way.

Time sped on; many weary miles were travelled, but no sign of Fort
Enterprise was to be seen. Day after day, week after week, month after
month they wandered, and still found themselves in the heart of an
unknown wilderness. Occasionally they observed signs of Indians, and
carefully kept out of sight at such times, as you may easily believe.

At last there came a day when hard frost set in. It was the first touch
of another winter. Roy and Nelly did not betray their feelings to each
other, but their hearts sank as they thought of what lay before them.
The frost was short-lived, however; towards noon the air became
delightfully warm, and their spirits revived.

On reaching the summit of an eminence, up which they had toiled for
several hours, they beheld a small lake, in which the silvery clouds
were clearly reflected. The day was calm; the sun unusually brilliant;
the autumnal foliage most gorgeous in colour. It was like a scene in
fairy-land!

"Splendid!" exclaimed Roy, sitting down beside his sister on the trunk
of a fallen tree.

"Oh! _how_ beautiful," cried Nelly.

"It's so like silver," said Roy.

"Silver Lake," murmured Nelly.

Roy seemed to think the name appropriate, for he echoed the words, "Yes,
Silver Lake." And there brother and sister sat, for a long time, on the
fallen tree, in silent admiration of the scene.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. A small Indian sledge, dragged on the snow, either by hand or
by dog with loops at the sides for lashing the loading of the sledge
upon it.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE ENCAMPMENT ON SILVER LAKE.

When Roy and Nelly sat down to gaze in admiration on Silver Lake, they
little thought how long a period they should have to spend on its
shores.

The lake was a small sheet of water not more than half a mile broad,
embosomed among low hills, which, though not grand, were picturesque in
outline, and wooded to their tops. It occupied the summit of an
elevated region or height-of-land--a water-shed, in fact--and Roy
afterwards discovered that water flowed from both the north-east and
south-west sides of the table-land, in the midst of which it lay. These
fountain-heads, separated by little more than half a mile from each
other, were the sources of streams, which, flowing in opposite
directions through hundreds of miles of wild, beaut