"Yes," carelessly replied Elwood, "unless he concluded to take a bout in the woods. He took his fowling-piece with him, to use in case the trout wouldn't bite, you know. Phillips, the old hunter, came into the field where we were last night, and said he was out of meat, and must skirt the lake to-day for a buck. I presume Claud may have joined him. There! hark! that sounded like Claud's piece," he added, as the distant report of a gun rose from the woods westward of the lake and died away in swelling echoes on the opposite shore. "And there, again!" he continued, as another and sharper report burst, the next moment, from the same locality,--"there goes another, but not his, as he could not have loaded so quick. That must have been Phillips' long rifle. They are doubtless together somewhere near the Magalloway,--some three miles distant, I should judge,--and are probably having fine sport with something." "That may be the case, perhaps," responded Mrs. Elwood. "I wish, however, he would come; for I cannot yet quite divest myself of the idea that there may be danger in these wild scenes of the lakes and the woods. But what was you about to say when I first spoke? You were going to say something, I thought." "O--yes--why, I was about to say that I had made up my mind to set fire to the _slash_. It is dry enough now to get a good burn; and it looks to me a good deal like rain. I wish to get the land cleared and ready to sow with winter wheat by the first of September; and I don't like to risk the chance of finding every thing in so good order again." "There is no danger that the fire will spread, or be blown to the buildings, is there?" "No, the wind is springing up in the south now, and will drive the fire only towards the lake in the direction of the landing." "But Claud may be there." "Well, if he should be, the fire won't burn up the lake, I think; and, if it besets the path in the woods, he can come round some other way," jocosely said Elwood, moving away to carry his purpose into execution.