arned to bear with patience and cheerfulness
privations that would have crushed the spirits of children more
delicately nurtured. They had known every degree of hunger and
nakedness; during the first few years of their lives they had often
been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs, wild
fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to decoy,
and to shoot. Thus Louis and Hector had early been initiated into the
mysteries of the chase. They could make deadfalls, and pits, and traps,
and snares,--they were as expert as Indians in the use of the bow,--they
could pitch a stone, or fling a wooden dart at partridge, hare, and
squirrel, with almost unerring aim; and were as swift of foot as young
fawns. Now it was that they learned to value in its fullest extent
this useful and practical knowledge, which enabled them to face with
fortitude the privations of a life so precarious as that to which they
were now exposed.

It was one of the elder Maxwell's maxims,--Never let difficulties
overcome you, but rather strive to conquer them; let the head direct the
hand, and the hand, like a well-disciplined soldier, obey the head
as chief. When his children expressed any doubts of not being able to
accomplish any work they had begun, he would say, "Have you not hands,
have you not a head, have you not eyes to see, and reason to guide
you? As for impossibilities, they do not belong to the trade of a
soldier,--he dare not see them." Thus were energy and perseverance early
instilled into the minds of his children; they were now called upon
to give practical proofs of the precepts that had been taught them
in childhood. Hector trusted to his axe, and Louis to his
_couteau-de-chasse_ and pocket-knife; the latter was a present from an
old forest friend of his father's, who had visited them the previous
winter, and which, by good luck, Louis had in his pocket--a capacious
pouch, in which were stored many precious things, such as coils of twine
and string, strips of leather, with odds and ends of various kinds;
nails, bits of iron, leather, and such miscellaneous articles as find
their way most mysteriously into boys' pockets in general, and Louis
Perron's in particular, who was a wonderful collector of such small
matters.

The children were not easily daunted by the prospect of passing a few
days abroad on so charming a spot, and at such a lovely season, where
fruits were so abundant; and when they had fi