small chance of meeting any one in these interminable woods, through which, as a matter of taste, I should prefer to travel by daylight," replied Isidore. "Indeed, I am rather thankful for the bright moonlight we seem likely to have, and wish we had a few more of such open glades as the one we have just crossed; it would be more agreeable—at least to me."

They had re-entered the wood, and had not proceeded very far when they came to a spot that would have been particularly dark owing to the great size of the trees and their closeness to each other, but for the few gleams of moonlight that found their way even through the dense foliage and lighted up a branch here and there with a strange and almost supernatural brightness. Suddenly the guide stopped, and slightly raising his hand as if to keep back his companion, gazed intently for a moment at a good-sized button-wood tree that stood at a distance of about thirty yards, but somewhat out of their course. Following the direction of the Canadian's eyes, Isidore looked wonderingly at the tree, when suddenly he saw a dark shapeless object drop from one of the lower branches. He expected of course to see it lying on the ground beneath the tree, but not a trace of it was visible; it seemed as if the earth had swallowed up the big dark thing, whatever it might have been.

The guide, who had half raised his rifle, now lowered it again. "The rascal has got off this time," said he, "but who would have expected to come across a red skin hereabouts just now? Stop a bit! Depend upon it, this is the same fellow who was found skulking about the general's head-quarters this evening. Yes, he is dogging our steps, and we shall hear more of him before we get to Chambly."

There was something about this announcement that was not at all pleasant to Boulanger's companion. He might be brave as a lion and cool enough in fair open fight, but the idea of being the object of a planned attack by Indian savages in the depths of a lonely American forest somewhat disconcerted him, and he looked rather anxiously around, as if each tree might harbour another lurking enemy.

"Nay, monsieur!" exclaimed Boulanger, "we shall not be troubled by any more of them just yet. There is not much hereabouts to tempt the red skins to come this way. That fellow was but a single scout, and he won't attack two men armed as we are; having made sure of our destination and the route we have chosen he is off by this time to join his friends, who may very likely make a dash at us two or three days hence; but Jean Baptiste is too old a hand to run into a trap with his eyes open. We will give them the slip yet by changing our route a little. We shall have to pass a small New England settlement, but——"

"An English settlement!" exclaimed Isidore, "that would surely be running into a trap, as you call it, with a vengeance."

"Not a bit," replied Boulanger; "I have been through fifty times as voyageur, trader, or what you will, and one of the settlers, John Pritchard, married a sister of mine, and the settlement is too near the border for them to do an ill-turn to a Canadian; still, with that uniform, it may be best for you to keep close and not show yourself, whilst I visit my old friends and lay in what is needful. We shall be safe enough. Allons!" So on they went.

Isidore could not fail to be struck by the unhesitating certainty with which his companion threaded the intricacies of the apparently interminable forest, through which he could detect no path or track of any kind, much less anything in the remotest degree resembling a road. There were, indeed, such things as tracks in the woods, though perhaps a league apart, but the practised eye of the Canadian forester needed none; his habits of observing every peculiarity, whether on the ground or above, enabled him to keep not only a direct course, but one which avoided any obstructions or impediments to their progress. Boulanger said that he had been used to these woods ever since he was born, some forty years since, and had lived in those parts until two or three years previously, when he had removed to the neighbourhood of Quebec with his wife, whom he called Bibi. His experience in all things pertaining to the woods had obtained for him a situation under the manager of the Royal Chase, as it was called, but he had been engaged by Montcalm, who had the gift of selecting the best man for every business, to act as one of the guides to the troops in the present campaign. After conducting Isidore to Chambly he was to have his discharge, and would be at liberty to return home; but it was plain that the last few months had revived in him a love for his old independent way of life, which doubtless contrasted strongly with his new position. It galled him to work for wages, however high, however certain, and his servitude brought him into contact with much at which his disposition revolted. So, as he told his story, he gradually grew more and more excited, declaiming hotly against the evils he had seen and heard of since he had quitted his log hut in the forest. For some little time Isidore listened with patience, or rather indifference, to his guide's indignant invectives against the various misdoings and iniquities of the creatures and underlings of the Government, and especially of those employed by Bigot, the king's intendant. At last, however, in his excitement, Boulanger began to launch out against Monsieur Bigot himself, whereupon he was somewhat sternly called to order by his aristocratic young companion, who bade him remember that it was not for such low-born fellows as he to open their mouths against the seigneurs and nobles, and least of all against the officers of His Most Christian Majesty. Had the guide been a New England colonist, rejoicing in the name of John Smith, he would probably have retorted boldly enough and held his ground, but what could be expected from Jean Baptiste the Canadian woodsman? He might have sense enough to understand the wrong-doing, and in the honest zeal of the moment he might inveigh against it, but it was not for him to set himself up against monseigneur the young Marquis de Beaujardin. There was a murmured apology, mingled with some kind of protest that it was all true, nevertheless, and then our travellers continued their journey for a while in the same unsatisfactory silence with which they had commenced it.

This state of things, however, did not continue very long. The young marquis, though he had considered it incumbent on him to rebuke a person who ventured to speak in such a way of the nobility, was not one to persist in assailing an adversary who had succumbed to him. Moreover, even his short experience of affairs in Canada told him that Boulanger had good grounds for what he said. The courtly magnificence of Versailles and the Tuileries might dazzle his understanding so far as to blind him to the existence of many crying evils in old France, but here there was nothing to gild and gloss over the corruption and mismanagement that everywhere prevailed. The shameful monopoly of all commerce by the Merchant Company; the iniquitous sale of spirits by the Government to the Indians; the rapacity exhibited in the system of trade-licences and other extortions by which the officials wrung from the humbler classes whatever could be got by fair means or by foul; to say nothing of the scandalous effrontery with which the Government itself was robbed by its own officers in every conceivable way—all these stood out in their naked deformity, and had more than once made Isidore wonder how a people thus treated could remain so generally loyal as the Canadians undoubtedly were. He was, consequently, ready enough to give his guide credit for honesty in his indignation, whilst the courtier-like habits he had already acquired in the salons of Paris made him appreciate the desirableness of being on fair terms with one who held not only his comfort, but probably his life, in his hands. He accordingly took the first opportunity of dropping some remark expressive of the admiration which he really