anks to Boulanger's
experience and to the genial August weather, Isidore found none of the
inconveniences he had anticipated in this impromptu journey, and slept
perhaps more soundly than he had ever done before during the long halts
which they made in the heat of the day. On the third day, late in the
afternoon, they approached the English settlement of which Boulanger
had spoken.

They had reached the top of a small ridge that looked upon the
clearings, the guide being perhaps a dozen yards in advance, when, just
as Isidore came up to him, the Canadian turned, and grasping his arm,
exclaimed, "The Indians! the Indians! Look! the Indians have been
there and destroyed the place. Alas! would that this were all. I fear
we may hardly hope to find one soul alive."

A single glance at the scene before them was sufficient to satisfy
Isidore that his companion's supposition was only too well founded. On
the extensive clearings spread out in the valley below he could plainly
see the remains of the half dozen homesteads, now either mere heaps of
ruins, or at best with only some portion left standing, like blackened
monuments serving to mark the spots where the bright hopes and joys of
the once happy little community, nay, perhaps they themselves, lay
buried for ever.

"Let us go down," said Boulanger, as soon as he recovered from the
first shock, "let us go down; it is not so very long since this has
happened, surely they cannot all have perished--at least we may learn
something as to how this came about, and if any yet survive." They
descended the hill, and scarcely had the guide begun to cross the first
tract of cultivated ground when the mournful expression of his face
changed to one of curiosity and surprise.

"Why, what is this?" exclaimed he, pointing to a dark object that lay
at a short distance from the spot. "A dead Huron, and in his war
paint! Yes--and there lies another. There has been a fight here not
many hours since, and the red skins have been worsted or we should not
see that sight, and yet the half dozen men belonging to the place could
have been no match for them." Boulanger hurried forward, Isidore
following him, and they soon came to an open spot that had served as a
kind of village green, on which many articles of various kinds were
strewed about. "Look here, and here!" cried he, now seizing Isidore by
the arm and pointing first in one direction, then in another. Half
irritated at this famil