is something in this canoe, the sight of
which will gladden your heart," cried Louis with a joyful look. "Come
quickly, and see my treasures."

"Treasures! You may well call them treasures," exclaimed Hector, as he
helped Louis to examine the contents of the canoe, and place them on the
shore, side by side.

The boys could hardly find words to express their joy and surprise at
the discovery of a large jar of parched rice, a tomahawk, an Indian
blanket almost as good as new, a large mat rolled up with a bass bark
rope several yards in length wound round it, and what was more precious
than all, an iron three-legged pot in which was a quantity of Indian
corn. These articles had evidently constituted the stores of some Indian
hunter or trapper; possibly the canoe had been imperfectly secured and
had drifted from its moorings during the gale of the previous night,
unless by some accident the owner had fallen into the lake and been
drowned; this was of course only a matter of conjecture on which it was
useless to speculate, and the boys joyfully took possession of the good
fortune that had so providentially been wafted, as it were, to their
very feet.

"It was a capital chance for us, that old cedar having been blown down
last night just where it was," said Louis; "for if the canoe had not
been drawn into the eddy, and stopped by the branches, we might have
lost it. I trembled when I saw the wind driving it on so rapidly that it
would founder in the deep water, or go off to Long Island."

"I think we should have got it at Pine-tree Point," said Hector, "but
I am glad it was lodged so cleverly among the cedar boughs. I was half
afraid you would have fallen in once or twice, when you were trying to
draw it nearer to the shore." "Never fear for me, my friend; I can cling
like a wild cat when I climb. But what a grand pot! What delightful
soups, and stews, and boils, Catharine will make! Hurrah!" and Louis
tossed up his new fur cap, that he had made with great skill from an
entire fox skin, in the air, and cut sundry fantastic capers which
Hector gravely condemned as unbecoming his mature age; (Louis was turned
of fifteen;) but with the joyous spirit of a little child he sung, and
danced, and laughed, and shouted, till the lonely echoes of the islands
and far-off hills returned the unusual sound, and even his more steady
cousin caught the infection, and laughed to see Louis so elated.

Leaving Hector to guard the prize, Lou