Part 22 (1/2)

”Like himself, of course. Tall, raw-boned, square-shouldered, red-haired (you know he told us she was red-haired), square-jawed, Roman-nosed--a Macnab female could be nothing else.”

”Come,” said I, ”don't be impolite to Highland females, but go on with the letter.”

Lumley obeyed, but the letter contained little more of interest. We cared not for that, however. We had now a subject capable of keeping us in speculative talk for a week--the mere fact that there was actually a civilised woman--a _lady_ perhaps--at all events a Macnab--within two hundred miles of us!

”No doubt she's a rugged specimen of the s.e.x,” said Lumley, as we sat beside the fire that night, ”no other kind of white female would venture to face this wilderness for the sake of a brother; but she _is_ a white woman, and she _is_ only two hundred miles off--unless our friend is joking--and she's Macnab's sister--Jessie, if I remember rightly--

”`Stalwart young Jessie, The flower of--'”

”Come, Lumley, that will do--good-night!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE JOYS OF CAMPING OUT--IMPORTANT ADDITIONS TO THE ESTABLISHMENT-- SERIOUS MATTERS AND WINTER AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.

At last winter came upon us in earnest. It had been threatening for a considerable time. Sharp frosts had occurred during the nights, and more than once we had on rising found thin ice forming on the lake, though the motion of the running water had as yet prevented our stream from freezing; but towards the end of October there came a day which completely changed the condition and appearance of things.

Every one knows the peculiar, I may say the exhilarating, sensations that are experienced when one looks out from one's window and beholds the landscape covered completely with the first snows of winter.

Well, those sensations were experienced on the occasion of which I write in somewhat peculiar circ.u.mstances. Lumley and I were out hunting at the time: we had been successful; and, having wandered far from the fort, resolved to encamp in the woods, and return home early in the morning.

”I do love to bivouac in the forest,” I said, as we busied ourselves spreading brush-wood on the ground, preparing the kettle, plucking our game, and kindling the fire, ”especially at this season of the year, when the sharp nights render the fire so agreeable.”

”Yes,” said Lumley, ”and the sharp appet.i.tes render food so delightful.”

”To say nothing,” I added, ”of the sharp wits that render intercourse so pleasant.”

”Ah, and not to mention,” retorted Lumley, ”the dull wits, stirred into unwonted activity, which tone down that intercourse with flashes of weakly humour. Now then, Max, clap on more wood. Don't spare the firing--there's plenty of it, so--isn't it grand to see the thick smoke towering upwards straight and solid like a pillar!”

”Seldom that one experiences a calm so perfect,” said I, glancing upward at the slowly-rising smoke. ”Don't you think it is the proverbial calm before the storm?”

”Don't know, Max. I'm not weather-wise. Can't say that I understand much about calms or storms, proverbial or otherwise, and don't much care.”

”That's not like your usual philosophical character, Lumley,” said I--”see, the column is still quite perpendicular--”

”Come, Max,” interrupted my friend, ”don't get sentimental till after supper. Go to work, and pluck that bird while I fill the kettle.”

”If anything can drive away sentiment,” I replied, taking up one of the birds which we had shot that day, ”the plucking and cleaning of this will do it.”

”On the contrary, man,” returned Lumley, taking up the tin kettle as he spoke, ”true sentiment, if you had it, would induce you to moralise on that bird as you plucked it--on the romantic commencement of its career amid the reeds and sedges of the swamps in the great Nor'-west; on the bold flights of its maturer years over the northern wilderness into those mysterious regions round the pole, which man, with all his vaunted power and wisdom, has failed to fathom, and on the sad--I may even say inglorious--termination of its course in a hunter's pot, to say nothing of a hunter's stom--”

”Lumley,” said I, interrupting, ”do try to hold your tongue, if you can, and go fill your kettle.”

With a laugh he swung off to a spring that bubbled at the foot of a rock hard by, and when he returned I had my bird plucked, singed, split open, and cleaned out. You must understand, reader, that we were not particular. We were wont to grasp the feathers in large handfuls, and such as would not come off easily we singed off.

”You see, Lumley,” said I, when he came back, ”I don't intend that this bird shall end his career in the pot. I'll roast him.”

”'Tis well, most n.o.ble Max, for I wouldn't let you pot him, even if you wished to. We have only one kettle, and that must be devoted to tea.”