"It must be a hunter, Emma," said Mary Percival; "he is not dressed like the Indians we saw at Quebec." "It must be," replied Emma; "won't he speak?" "We will wait and see," replied Mary. They did wait for a minute or more, but the man neither spoke nor shifted his position. "I will speak to him, Mary," said Emma at last. "My good man, you are Malachi Bone, are you not?" "That's my name," replied the hunter in a deep voice; "and who on earth are you, and what are you doing here? Is it a frolic from the fort, or what is it, that causes all this disturbance?" "Disturbance!--why we don't make a great deal of noise; no, it's no frolic; we are come to settle here, and shall be your neighbors." [Illustration: MALACHI.] "To settle here!--why, what on earth do you mean, young woman? Settle here!--not you, surely." "Yes, indeed, we are. Don't you know Martin Super, the trapper? He is with us, and now at work in the woods getting ready for raising the house, as you call it.--Do you know, Mary," said Emma in a low tone to her sister, "I'm almost afraid of that man, although I do speak so boldly." "Martin Super--yes, I know him," replied the hunter, who without any more ceremony threw his gun into the hollow of his arm, turned round, and walked away in the direction of his own hut. "Well, Mary," observed Emma, after a pause of a few seconds, during which they watched the receding form of the hunter, "the old gentleman is not over-polite. Suppose we go back and narrate our first adventure?" "Let us walk up to where Alfred and Martin Super are at work, and tell them," replied Mary. They soon gained the spot where the men were felling the trees, and made known to Alfred and Martin what had taken place. "He is angered, miss," observed Martin; "I guessed as much; well, if he don't like it he must squat elsewhere." "How do you mean squat elsewhere?" "I mean, miss, that if he don't like company so near him he must shift and build his wigwam further off." "But, why should he not like company? I should have imagined that it would be agreeable rather than otherwise," replied Mary Percival. "You may think so, miss; but Malachi Bone thinks otherwise; and it's natural; a man who has lived all his life in the woods, all alone, his eye never resting, his ear ever watching; catching at every sound, even to the breaking of a twig or the falling of a leaf; sleeping with his finger on his trigger and one eye half open, gets used to no company but his own, and can't abide it. I recollect the time that I could not. Why, miss, when a man hasn't spoken a word perhaps for months, talking is a fatigue, and, when he hasn't heard a word spoken for months, listening is as bad. It's all custom, miss, and Malachi, as I guessed, don't like it, and so he's _rily_ and angered. I will go see him after the work is over." "But he has a wife, Martin, has he not?" "Yes; but she's an Indian wife, Master Alfred, and Indian wives don't speak unless they're spoken to."