Elder put his hand in his pocket and pulled
out a large clasp-knife.

"Why, that's my knife that I lost!" exclaimed La Certe in surprise;
"where did you find it?"

"I found it on my table at home, where you left it that time you came to
ask for some tobacco. Now, observe, if I did not seriously hold and
practise the principle of honesty, I would have made the best of
circumstances as I found them, and would have put the knife in my pocket
instead of returning it to you."

La Certe laughed, and Slowfoot said, "Hee! hee!" while the juvenile La
Certe availed itself of the opportunity to draw the pipe gently from its
father's hand and have a whiff.

"I have a message to you from the Governor," continued the Elder, taking
a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"For me!" exclaimed La Certe, in surprise.

"Yes. He heard that you are hard up just now, and that you are going up
the river a considerable distance to hunt--is not that so?"

"Yes, that is true. We start off to-morrow."

"Well, then, he gave me this order for some supplies of powder and shot,
twine and hooks, with some cloth, beads, and such like for Slowfoot."

"That is very good of the Governor--very considerate," said La Certe
with a pleased look.

"Very good," said Sutherland. "Now, La Certe, suppose it true that men
are meant to make the best of circumstances as they find them, and that
I was a man without any regard to principle, I might have drawn these
supplies from the store for you, and used them myself, and you would not
have been a bit the wiser."

Again the half-breed laughed, and admitted the truth of the proposition,
while Slowfoot expressed her belief, (whatever it was), in a more than
usually emphatic "Hee! hee!"

Returning home from his apparently useless errand, Sutherland met Fred
Jenkins with a gun on his shoulder. The seaman was accompanied by
Archie Sinclair.

"Well, Jenkins," he said, heartily, "you must be like a fish out o'
water in these regions. Don't you feel a longing, sometimes, for the
roar of the gale and the smell o' the salt sea?"

"Can't say as I does, Mr Sutherland. I've bin used to accommodate
myself to circumstances, dee see, ever since I was a small shaver; so
nothin' comes exactly amiss to me--"

"O Fred! how can you tell thumpers like that?" interrupted the forward
Archie. "Isn't Elise Morel a miss to you? and Elspie, and Jessie
Davidson?"

"Clap a stopper on your mug, you young scape grace!" retort