way in its capacious interior.
The canoe of which we are now writing contained two persons, whose
active figures were thrown alternately into every graceful attitude of
manly vigour, as with poles in hand they struggled to force their light
craft against the boiling stream. One was a man apparently of about
forty-five years of age. He was a square-shouldered, muscular man, and
from the ruggedness of his general appearance, the soiled hunting-shirt
that was strapped round his waist with a parti-coloured worsted belt,
the leather leggings, a good deal the worse for wear, together with the
quiet, self-possessed glance of his grey eye, the compressed lip and
sunburned brow, it was evident that he was a hunter, and one who had
seen rough work in his day. The expression of his face was pleasing,
despite a look of habitual severity which sat upon it, and a deep scar
which traversed his brow from the right temple to the top of his nose.
It was difficult to tell to what country he belonged. His father was a
Canadian, his mother a Scotchwoman. He was born in Canada, brought up
in one of the Yankee settlements on the Missouri, and had, from a mere
youth, spent his life as a hunter in the wilderness. He could speak
English, French, or Indian with equal ease and fluency, but it would
have been hard for any one to say which of the three was his native
tongue. The younger man, who occupied the stern of the canoe, acting
the part of steersman, was quite a youth, apparently about seventeen,
but tall and stout beyond his years, and deeply sunburned. Indeed, were
it not for this fact, the unusual quantity of hair that hung in massive
curls down his neck, and the voyageur costume, we should have recognised
our young friend Charley Kennedy again more easily. Had any doubts
remained in our mind, the shout of his merry voice would have scattered
them at once.

"Hold hard, Jacques!" he cried, as the canoe trembled in the current;
"one moment, till I get my pole fixed behind this rock. Now then, shove
ahead. Ah!" he exclaimed, with chagrin, as the pole slipped on the
treacherous bottom and the canoe whirled round.

"Mind the rock," cried the bowsman, giving an energetic thrust with his
pole, that sent the light bark into an eddy formed by a large rock which
rose above the turbulent waters. Here it rested while Jacques and
Charley raised themselves on their knees (travellers in small canoes
always sit in a kneeling position) to surv