a small
way, and his father was a great laird, with the same qualifications. I was born
on the estate, and have followed the Major so long that I've got to reverence
all he says and does. That's just my weakness, ye'll know, Pathfinder. Well,
this post may be the post of an ass, or of a Solomon, as men fancy, but it's
most critically placed, as is apparent by all Lundie's precautions and
injunctions. There are savages out, scouting through these thousand islands, and
over the forest, searching for this very spot, as is known to Lundie himself, on
certain information, and the greatest service you can render the 55th, is to
discover their trails, and lead them off, on a false scent. Unhappily, Serjeant
Dunham has taken up the notion, that the danger is to be apprehended from up
stream, because Frontenac lies above us, whereas all experience tells us, that
Indians come on the side that is most contrary to reason, and, consequently, are
to be expected from below. Take your canoe, therefore, and go down stream, among
the islands, that we may have notice if any danger approaches from that quarter.
If ye should look a few miles on the main, especially on the York side, the
information you'd bring in would be all the more accurate, and consequently the
more valuable.
    The Big Sarpent is on the look out, in that quarter, and as he knows the
station well, no doubt he will give us timely notice, should any wish to
sarcumvent us, in that direction.«
    »He is but an Indian, after all, Pathfinder, and this is an affair that
calls for the knowledge of a white man. Lundie will be eternally grateful to the
man that shall help this little enterprise to come off with flying colours. To
tell you the truth, my friend, he is conscious it should never have been
attempted, but he has too much of the old laird's obstinacy about him, to own an
error, though it be as manifest as the morning star.«
    The Quarter Master then continued to reason with his companion, in order to
induce him to quit the island, without delay, using such arguments as first
suggested themselves, sometimes contradicting himself, and not unfrequently
urging at one moment a motive that at the next was directly opposed by another.
The Pathfinder, simple as he was, detected these flaws in the Lieutenant's
philosophy, though he was far from suspecting that