its shoulder and shot two balls through its body. The other escaped unhurt; and the dogs pursued the wounded one till he compelled them to return with their flesh badly lacerated. [Illustration: _Orford Lake._] “By this time the winter sun had ceased to shed his refulgent beams upon that portion of the globe, and the men deemed it imprudent to follow the tracks until the succeeding morning; when Howay, accompanied by a person of the name of Nowlan, an American by birth, and of course well acquainted with the woods, followed the tracks, having previously provided themselves with a rifle, an axe, about six charges of powder and shot, and bread and meat sufficient for their dinner. This was early in the morning of Thursday, the 12th of December. About two o’clock in the afternoon they were observed by some persons crossing the river Thames, nearly seven miles from the place at which they set off. This was the only intelligence we had of them for thirteen days. After they had been absent for some time their friends concluded that they must either have perished with hunger and cold, or have been destroyed by the wounded bear. I was strongly of opinion that they had been frozen to death, for the weather was excessively cold, and they were slightly clothed, without a tinder-box and totally unprovided with any means of shielding themselves from the inclemency of the weather. I therefore assembled a large party of the settlers pertaining to the townships of London and Nassouri, and proposed that we should stock ourselves with provisions for a few days, and go in quest of the two unfortunate hunters. To this proposal they unanimously agreed; and we set off on the following morning, provided with pocket compasses and trumpets, a good supply of ammunition, and the necessary apparatus for lighting fires, taking with us some of the best dogs in the country. In the interval between their departure and ours a partial thaw had taken place, which left not the slightest layer of snow upon the ground, except in low and swampy situations. We had, therefore, no tracks for our direction, nor any idea of the course which Howay and Nowlan had taken, except what we had obtained from the persons who saw them crossing the Thames on the day of their departure. We had no very sanguine hopes of finding them; but continued for two days to explore thousands of acres of interminable forests and desolate swamps, apparently untrodden by human foot, yet without the most distant prospect of success. We returned home, having given up all expectation of seeing them again, either living or dead. There was, however, one consideration which administered a portion of comfort to our anxiety: the objects of our search were men without families—they were strangers in America. They had no parents here to mourn over their untimely fate; no wives to lament the hour when they first met, or the moment when they last parted; and no children to