newspapers came to tell of the doings of the busy world from which they
were shut out, and nothing occurred to vary the dull routine of their
life; so that it is not matter for wonder that they were driven to seek
for relaxation and excitement occasionally in most outrageous and
unnatural ways, and to indulge now and then in the perpetration of a
practical joke.

For some time after the rebuke administered by Mr Rogan, silence
reigned in _Bachelor's Hall_, as the clerks' house was termed. But at
length symptoms of _ennui_ began to be displayed. The doctor yawned,
and lay down on his bed to enjoy an American newspaper about twelve
months old. Harry Somerville sat down to re-read a volume of Franklin's
travels in the polar regions, which he had perused twice already. Mr
Hamilton busied himself in cleaning his fowling-piece; while the skipper
conversed with Mr Wilson, who was engaged in his room in adjusting an
ivory head to a walking-stick. Mr Wilson was a jack-of-all-trades, who
could make shift, one way or other, to do _anything_. The accountant
paced the uncarpeted floor in deep contemplation.

At length he paused, and looked at Harry Somerville for some time.

"What say you to a walk through the woods to North River, Harry?"

"Ready," cried Harry, tossing down the book with a look of
contempt--"ready for anything."

"Will _you_ come, Hamilton?" added the accountant. Hamilton looked up
in surprise.

"You don't mean, surely, to take so long a walk in the dark, do you? It
is snowing, too, very heavily, and I think you said that North River was
five miles off, did you not?"

"Of course I mean to walk in the dark," replied the accountant, "unless
you can extemporise an artificial light for the occasion, or prevail on
the moon to come out for my special benefit. As to snowing, and a short
tramp of five miles, why, the sooner you get to think of such things as
_trifles_ the better, if you hope to be fit for anything in this
country."

"I _don't_ think much of them," replied Hamilton, softly, and with a
slight smile; "I only meant that such a walk was not very _attractive_
so late in the evening."

"Attractive!" shouted Harry Somerville from his bedroom, where he was
equipping himself for the walk; "what can be more attractive than a
sharp run of ten miles through the woods on a cool night to visit your
traps, with the prospect of a silver fox or a wolf at the end of it, and
an extra sound sleep as the res