y disposition, he found
it exceedingly difficult to forget injuries, especially when these were
unprovoked. His native generosity might have prompted him perhaps to
find some excuse for the fur-trader's apparent want of candour, or to
believe that there might be some explanation of it, but, as it was, he
flung into the other scale not only the supposed injury inflicted by
Redding, but all his weighty disappointments at the loss of his old
home, and of course generosity kicked the beam!

Acting on these feelings, he turned the bow of the boat inshore without
uttering a word, and when her keel grated on the gravelly beach, he
looked somewhat sternly at Le Rue, and said:--

"You may jump ashore, and go back to your fort."

"Monsieur?" exclaimed Le Rue, aghast with surprise.

"Jump ashore," repeated McLeod, with a steady, quiet look of
impassibility. "Go, tell your master that I do not require further
assistance from him."

The Canadian felt that McLeod's look and tone admitted of neither
question nor delay. His surprise therefore gave way to a burst of
indignation. He leaped ashore with a degree of energy that sent the
little boat violently off the beach, and the shingles spurted from his
heels as he strode into the forest, renewing his vows of vengeance
against his late friends and old enemies, "de Macklodds!"

CHAPTER NINE.

SURMISINGS, DISAGREEMENTS, VEXATIONS, AND BOTHERATIONS.

Great was the amazement and perplexity of Reginald Redding when his
faithful cook returned to the Cliff Fort bearing the elder McLeod's
message. At first he jumped to the conclusion that McLeod had observed
his affection for Flora, and meant thus to give him a broad hint that
his addresses were not agreeable. Being, like McLeod, an angry man, he
too became somewhat blind. All his pride and indignation were aroused.
The more he brooded over the subject, however, the more he came to see
that this could not be the cause of McLeod's behaviour. He was terribly
perplexed, and, finally, after several days, he determined to go down to
the scene of the wreck and demand an explanation.

"It is the proper course to follow," he muttered to himself, one day
after breakfast, while brooding alone over the remnants of the meal,
"for it would be unjust to allow myself to lie under a false imputation,
and it would be equally unjust to allow the McLeods to remain under a
false impression. Perhaps some enemy may have put them against me.
An