g a high palisade round the
premises. Martin had not been idle. The site of the house was just where
the brushwood joined to the prairie, and Martin had been clearing it
away and stacking it, and also collecting wood for winter fuel. It had
been decided that the four cows, which had been driven round from the
fort, should be housed during the winter in the small building on the
other side of the stream, which had belonged to Malachi Bone, as it was
surrounded with a high snake-fence, and sufficiently large to hold them
and even more. The commandant had very kindly selected the most quiet
cows to milk, and Mary and Emma Percival had already entered upon their
duties: the milk had been put into the store-house until a dairy could
be built up. A very neat bridge had been thrown across the stream, and
every morning the two girls, generally attended by Henry, Alfred, or
Captain Sinclair, crossed over, and soon became expert in their new
vocation as dairy-maids. Altogether, things began to wear a promising
appearance. Henry and Mr. Campbell had dug up as fast as Martin and
Alfred cleared away the brushwood, and the garden had already been
cropped with such few articles as could be put in at the season. The
commandant had some pigs ready for the settlers as soon as they were
ready to receive them, and had more than once come up in the boats to
ascertain their progress and to offer any advice that he might consider
useful.

We must not, however, forget Malachi Bone. The day after Bone had come
to Mr. Campbell, Emma perceived him going away into the woods, with his
rifle, followed by her cousin John, and being very curious to see his
Indian wife, she persuaded Alfred and Captain Sinclair to accompany her
and Mary to the other side of the stream. The great point was to know
where to cross it, but as John had found out the means of so doing, it
was to be presumed that there was a passage, and they set off to look
for it. They found that, about half a mile up the stream, which there
ran through the wood, a large tree had been blown down and laid across
it, and with the assistance of the young men, Mary and Emma passed it
without much difficulty; they then turned back by the side of the stream
until they approached the lodge of old Malachi. As they walked toward
it, they could not perceive any one stirring; but at last a dog of the
Indian breed began to bark; still nobody came out, and they arrived at
the door of the lodge where the