y reason, sir," said Davidson, "that I want to get
married at once, so that if anything does happen again I may claim the
right to be Elspie's protector."

"Quite right, my boy, quite right; though I must say I would like to
wait till a real munister comes out; for although Mr Sutherland iss a
fery goot man, an' an elder too, he iss not chust exactly a munister,
you know, as I have said before. But have it your own way, Tan. If my
little lass is willin', old Tuncan McKay won't stand in your way."

That night the inhabitants of Red River lay down to sleep in comfort and
to dream, perchance, of the coming, though long delayed, prosperity that
had hitherto so often eluded their grasp.

Next day an event occurred which gave the poor settlers new cause for
grief amounting almost to despair.

Dan Davidson and Elspie were walking on the verandah in front of Ben
Nevis at the time. It was a warm sunny afternoon. All around looked
the picture of peace and prosperity.

"Does it not seem, Dan, as if all the troubles we have gone through were
a dark dream--as if there never had been any reality in them?" said
Elspie.

"It does indeed seem so," responded Dan, "and I hope and trust that we
shall henceforth be able to think of them as nothing more than a
troubled dream."

"What iss that you will be sayin' about troubled dreams?" asked old
McKay, coming out of the house at the moment.

"We were just saying, daddy, that all our troubles seem--"

"Look yonder, Tan," interrupted the old man, pointing with his pipe-stem
to a certain part of the heavens. "What iss it that I see? A queer
cloud, whatever! I don't remember seein' such a solid cloud as that in
all my experience."

"It is indeed queer. I hope it's not what Fred Jenkins would call a
`squall brewin' up,' for that wouldn't improve the crops."

"A squall!" exclaimed Jenkins, who chanced to come round the corner of
the house at the moment, with a spade on his shoulder. "That's never a
squall--no, nor a gale, nor a simoon, nor anything else o' the sort that
I ever heard of. Why, it's growin' bigger an' bigger!"

He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked earnestly at the object in
question, which did indeed resemble a very dense, yet not a black,
cloud. For some moments the four spectators gazed in silence. Then old
McKay suddenly dropped his pipe, and looked at Dan with an expression of
intense solemnity.

"It iss my belief," he said in a hoarse whisper,