he looked rather anxiously
around, as if each tree might harbour another lurking enemy.

"Nay, monsieur!" exclaimed Boulanger, "we shall not be troubled by any
more of them just yet. There is not much hereabouts to tempt the red
skins to come this way. That fellow was but a single scout, and he
won't attack two men armed as we are; having made sure of our
destination and the route we have chosen he is off by this time to join
his friends, who may very likely make a dash at us two or three days
hence; but Jean Baptiste is too old a hand to run into a trap with his
eyes open. We will give them the slip yet by changing our route a
little. We shall have to pass a small New England settlement, but----"

"An English settlement!" exclaimed Isidore, "that would surely be
running into a trap, as you call it, with a vengeance."

"Not a bit," replied Boulanger; "I have been through fifty times as
_voyageur_, trader, or what you will, and one of the settlers, John
Pritchard, married a sister of mine, and the settlement is too near the
border for them to do an ill-turn to a Canadian; still, with that
uniform, it may be best for you to keep close and not show yourself,
whilst I visit my old friends and lay in what is needful. We shall be
safe enough. _Allons_!" So on they went.

Isidore could not fail to be struck by the unhesitating certainty with
which his companion threaded the intricacies of the apparently
interminable forest, through which he could detect no path or track of
any kind, much less anything in the remotest degree resembling a road.
There were, indeed, such things as tracks in the woods, though perhaps
a league apart, but the practised eye of the Canadian forester needed
none; his habits of observing every peculiarity, whether on the ground
or above, enabled him to keep not only a direct course, but one which
avoided any obstructions or impediments to their progress. Boulanger
said that he had been used to these woods ever since he was born, some
forty years since, and had lived in those parts until two or three
years previously, when he had removed to the neighbourhood of Quebec
with his wife, whom he called Bibi. His experience in all things
pertaining to the woods had obtained for him a situation under the
manager of the Royal Chase, as it was called, but he had been engaged
by Montcalm, who had the gift of selecting the best man for every
business, to act as one of the guides to the troops in the pres