but Jeanie knew how to place her feet and keep her balance and speedily gained the other bank and resumed her journey. On reaching the place where the two rivers unite, she could not, despite her anxiety, help pausing to admire the beautiful expanse of water, which, unruffled by a breath of wind, lay glassing itself in the sunshine, while the forest, which rose from its margin on either side, formed no unfit setting. Presently she saw a ripple upon its surface, and her keen eye perceived the black head of a muskrat, which was making its way to the opposite bank. While she followed the rapid movements of the little creature, there was the flash and smoke of a gun before her, and, while the woods were still echoing the report, a dog jumped into the water to bring in the rat, which floated dead upon the current. A few steps brought Jeanie to the marksman, a tall, wiry man, of rather prepossessing appearance. His dog had returned and laid the rat at his master’s feet, who was encouraging him with exclamations of “Good dog! good dog!” when he caught sight of her. “Waal neow, who would a thought it? Miss Jeanie herself and nobody else. How do you do?” And stretching forth his sinewy arm, he grasped her hand in a clutch that would have made a bear shed tears. “Oh, I’m well, thank you, Mr Palmer, and my mother, but we’re in sore trouble.” “Don’t say the old man is sick?” and an anxious look passed over the kindly face of the honest Yankee. “Oh, dear sir, we dinna ken whether he’s sick or well. He left home Monday morning and was to be back next night and he hasna come yet, and I’ve come to ask after him and get help to find him if nobody knows where he is?” As she spoke there was a tremor in Jeanie’s voice, and a tear glistened on her drooping eyelashes. “Ha, do tell; this is serious,” and the hunter leant upon his rifle and gazed abstractedly upon the river, as if trying to conjecture what could have become of the lost man, until, noting Jeanie’s evident distress, he aroused himself, and, exhorting her to keep up heart, led the way to his house. “You see,” he said, as they picked their way along the rough path by the river’s edge, “there ain’t much to shoot yet and what there is ain’t worth killing, but I kinder felt lonesome to be about doors so fine a day, and I took a stroll, tho’ all I came across was that mushrat, which, darn it skin, ain’t worth the lead that killed it.” “If the shooting is poor, the fishing will be good,” said Jeanie, who humored the spirit of the sportsman. “Couldn’t be better,” answered Mr Palmer, “I speared seven salmon at the foot of the rapids last night, and this morning I drew my seine full of as pretty fish as you would want to clap your eyes on.”