ys,
and had two spare bed-places in it. The others, which were for the two
girls and Mr and Mrs Campbell, were much smaller. But before the
house was half built, a large outhouse adjoining to it had been raised
to hold the stores which Mr Campbell had brought with him, with a rough
granary made above the store-room. The interior of the house was not
yet fitted up, although the furniture had been put in, and the family
slept in it, rough as it was, in preference to the tents, as they were
very much annoyed with mosquitoes. The stores were now safe from the
weather, and they had a roof over their heads, which was the grand
object that was to be obtained. The carpenters were still very busy
fitting up the interior of the house, and the other men were splitting
rails for a snake-fence, and also selecting small timber for raising 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 four cows, which had
been driven round from the fort, should be housed during the winter in a
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 that 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