ting with Charley was a wrench all around: but Garth was
firm in insisting that the boy must go back, and put up his hay. In the
easy-going North it is only too easy to drop one's tools and start off
on a jaunt. Charley bade them an abrupt good-bye; and bustled away to
hide his tears.

In the mystical gloom which, in northern latitudes, precedes the summer
dawn, Garth and Natalie, each leading a pack pony, rode through the
Settlement, which straggled for several miles around the shore of Moose
Bay, a wide, shallow arm of the lake, once navigable, but now given over
to the wild-fowl. The shacks were infinitely various; for in a land
where every man builds for himself, a house quaintly expresses the
character of its owner. But one thing was common to all; no one wastes
any ornament on his dwelling; and in the luxuriant greenness of the
northern summer, the grim, solid little houses were a reminder of
the coming cold.

Later in the day they passed the long, gradual climb over the height
of land separating the great watersheds of the Miwasa and the Spirit.
On the other side they came to a flat country and of the same general
character all the way. It was a shining day; and, being young, they
forgot their cares and rode gaily. For the most part the trail lay in
a straight and lofty nave of aspen trees, rearing their slender, snowy
pillars sixty, eighty--even a hundred feet aloft; and mingling their
clusters of nimble, chattering leaves high overhead in the sun. There
was nothing gloomy about this cathedral; the sun found a thousand
apertures through which to launch his rays against the white pillars;
while the green and mutable roof was bathed in almost intolerable
radiance--it was a temple in green and white, Flora's colours.

Occasionally there were cloistered openings; sunny little meadows
inclining to a spring, where the wild pea-vine, plant beloved of horses,
and infallible sign of a rich soil, grew knee-deep. Such an opening they
learned, however small, was quaintly dignified by the natives with the
name of prairie.

Their ponies, each exhibiting a distinct individuality, afforded the
excuse for their amusement on the way. Garth's mount, that a previous
owner had christened "Cyclops," and who was tall enough and bony enough
to be called a horse, was, like themselves, a stranger in the bush, and
his face offered a comical study in anxiety, willingness and stupidity,
under these new conditions. Natalie rode a young s