A few hours later, Mabel Dunham was on the bastion that
overlooked the river and the lake, seemingly in deep thought.
The evening was calm and soft, and the question had arisen
whether the party for the Thousand Islands would be able to
get out that night, or not, on account of the total absence
of wind. The stores, arms, and ammunition were already
shipped, and even Mabel's effects were on board; but the small
draft of men that was to go was still ashore, there being no
apparent prospect of the cutter's getting under way. Jasper
had warped the Scud out of the cove, and so far up the
stream as to enable him to pass through the outlet of the
river, whenever he chose; but there he still lay, riding at
single anchor. The drafted men were lounging about the
shore of the cove, undecided whether or not to pull off.

The sports of the morning had left a quiet in the garrison
that was in harmony with the whole of the beautiful scene,
and Mabel felt its influence on her feelings, though probably
too little accustomed to speculate on such sensations, to be
aware of the cause. Every thing near appeared lovely and
soothing, while the solemn grandeur of the silent forest and
placid expanse of the lake, lent a sublimity that other scenes

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might have wanted. For the first time, Mabel felt the hold
that the towns and civilization had gained on her habits sensibly
weakened, and the warm-hearted girl began to think
that a life passed amid objects, such as these around her,
might be happy. How far the experience of the last ten
days came in aid of the calm and holy even-tide, and contributed
towards producing that young conviction, may be
suspected, rather than affirmed, in this early portion of our
legend.

“A charming sunset, Mabel,” said the hearty voice of her
uncle, so close to the ear of our heroine as to cause her to
start—“a charming sunset, girl, for a fresh-water concern,
though we should think but little of it at sea.”

“And is not nature the same, on shore, or at sea; on a
lake like this, or on the ocean? Does not the sun shine on
all alike, dear uncle, and can we not feel gratitude for the
blessings of Providence, as strongly on this remote frontier, as
in our own Manhattan?”

“The girl has fallen in with some of her mother's books!—
though I should think the serjeant would scarcely make a
second march with such trumpery among his baggage. Is
not nature the same, indeed!—Now, Mabel, do you imagine
that the nature of a soldier is the same as that of a sea-faring
man?—You 've relations in both callings, and ought to be
able to answer.”

“But, uncle, I mean human nature—”

“So do I, girl; the human nature of a seaman, and the
human nature of one of these fellows of the 55th, not even
excepting your own father. Here have they had a shooting-match—
target-firing I should call it—this day, and what a
different thing has it been from a target-firing afloat! There
we should have sprung our broadside, sported with round
shot, at an object half a mile off, at the very nearest; and the
potatoes, if there happened to be any on board, as quite likely
would not have been the case, would have been left in the
cook's coppers. It may be an honourable calling, that of a
soldier, Mabel, but an experienced hand sees many follies
and weaknesses in one of these forts. As for that bit of a
lake, you know my opinion of it, already, and I wish to disparage
nothing. No real sea-farer disparages anything; but
d—e, if I regard this here Ontario, as they call it, as more

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than so much water in a ship's scuttle-butt. Now, look you
here, Mabel, if you wish to understand the difference between
the ocean and a lake, I can make you comprehend it, with a
single look: this is what one may call a calm, seeing that
there is no wind; though, to own the truth, I do not think
the calms are as calm as them we get outside—”

“Uncle, there is not a breath of air! I do not think it
possible for the leaves to be more immovably still, than those
of the entire forest are, at this very moment.”

“Leaves! what are leaves, child? there are no leaves at sea.
If you wish to know whether it is a dead calm, or not, try a
mould candle—your dips flaring too much—and then you
may be certain whether there is, or is not, any wind. If
you were in a latitude where the air was so still that you
found a difficulty in stirring it to draw it in, in breathing,
you might fancy it a calm. People are often on a short
allowance of air, in the calm latitudes. Here, again, look
at that water!—It is like milk in a pan, with no more motion,
now, than there is in a full hogshead before the bung is
started. On the ocean, the water is never still, let the air be
as quiet as it may.”

“The water of the ocean never still, uncle Cap!—not even
in a calm?”

“Bless your heart, no, child. The ocean breathes like a
living being, and its bosom is always heaving, as the poetizers
call it, though there be no more air than is to be found in a
syphon. No man ever saw the ocean still, like this lake;
but it heaves and sets, as if it had lungs.”

“And this lake is not absolutely still, for you perceive
there is a little ripple on the shore, and you may even hear
the surf, plunging, at moments, against the rocks.”

“All d—d poetry! One may call a bubble a ripple, if
he will, and washing decks a surf; but Lake Ontario is no
more the Atlantic, than a Powles Hook periagua is a first-rate.
That Jasper, notwithstanding, is a fine lad, and wants
instruction only to make a man of him!”

“Do you think him ignorant, uncle,” answered Mabel,
prettily adjusting her hair, in order to do which she was
obliged, or fancied she was obliged, to turn away her face—
“To me, Jasper Eau-douce appears to know more than most
of the young men of his class. He has read but little, for

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books are not plenty in this part of the world, but he has
thought much; at least so it seems to me, for one so young.”

“He is ignorant, he is ignorant, as all must be who navigate
an inland water, like this. He can make a flat knot
and a timber hitch, it is true; but he has no more notion of
crowning a cable, now, or of a carrick bend, than you have
of catting an anchor. No—no—Mabel; we both owe something
to Jasper and the Pathfinder, and I have been thinking
how I can best serve them, for I hold ingratitude to be the
vice of a hog. Some people say it is the vice of a king; but
I say it is the failing of a hog; for treat the animal to your
own dinner, and he would eat you for the dessert.”

“Very true, dear uncle, and we ought indeed to do all we
can to express our proper sense of the services of both these
brave men.”

“Spoken like your mother's daughter, girl, and in a way
to do credit to the Cap family. Now, I've hit upon a traverse
that will just suit all parties, and as soon as we get back from
this little expedition down the lake, among them there thousand
islands, and I am ready to return, it is my intention to
propose it.”

“Dearest uncle! this is so considerate in you, and will be
so just! May I ask what your intentions are?”

“I see no reason for keeping them a secret from you,
Mabel, though nothing need be said to your father about them,
for the serjeant has his prejudices, and might throw difficulties
in the way. Neither Jasper, nor his friend, Pathfinder, can
ever make anything hereabouts, and I propose to take both
with me, down to the coast, and get them fairly afloat. Jasper
would find his sea-legs in a fortnight, and a twelvemonth's
v'y'ge would make him a man. Although Pathfinder might
take more time, or never get to be rated able, yet one could
make something of him, too, particularily as a look-out, for
he has unusually good eyes.”

“Uncle, do you think either would consent to this?” said
Mabel, smiling.

“Do I suppose them simpletons? What rational being
would neglect his own advancement? Let Jasper alone to
push his way, and the lad may yet die the master of some
square-rigged craft.”

“And would he be any the happier for it, dear uncle?

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How much better is it to be the master of a square-rigged
craft, than to be master of a round-rigged craft?”

“Pooh—pooh, Magnet, you are just fit to read lectures
about ships before some hysterical society; you don't know
what you are talking about; leave these things to me, and
they 'll be properly managed. Ah! here is the Pathfinder
himself, and I may just as well drop him a hint of my benevolent
intentions, as regards himself. Hope is a great encourager
of our exertions.”

Cap nodded his head, and then ceased to speak, while the
hunter approached, not with his usual frank and easy manner,
but in a way to show that he was slightly embarrassed,
if not distrustful of his reception.

“Uncle and niece make a family party,” said Pathfinder,
when near the two, “and a stranger may not prove a welcome
companion?”

“You are no stranger, Master Pathfinder,” returned Cap,
“and no one can be more welcome than yourself. We were
talking of you, but a moment ago, and when friends speak
of an absent man, he can guess what they have said.”

“I ask no secrets—I ask no secrets. Every man has his
enemies, and I have mine, though I count neither you,
Master Cap, nor pretty Mabel, here, among the number.
As for the Mingos, I will say nothing; though they have no
just cause to hate me.”

“That I 'll answer for, Pathfinder, for you strike my fancy
as being well disposed and upright. There is a method, however,
of getting away from the enmity of even these Mingos,
and if you choose to take it, no one will more willingly point
it out, than myself, without a charge for my advice either.”

“I wish no enemies, Saltwater,” for so the Pathfinder had
begun to call Cap, having, insensibly to himself, adopted the
term by translating the name given him by the Indians, in
and about the fort,—“I wish no enemies. I 'm as ready to
bury the hatchet with the Mingos as with the French, though
you know that it depends on one greater than either of us,
so to turn the heart, as to leave a man without enemies.”

“By lifting your anchor, and accompanying me down to
the coast, friend Pathfinder, when we get back from this
short cruise on which we are bound, you will find yourself

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beyond the sound of the war-whoop, and safe enough from
any Indian bullet.”

“And what should I do on the salt-water? Hunt in your
towns! Follow the trails of people going and coming from
market, and ambush dogs and poultry! You are no friend
to my happiness, Master Cap, if you would lead me out
of the shade of the woods, to put me in the sun of the
clearings!”

“I did not propose to leave you in the settlements, Pathfinder,
but to carry you out to sea, where a man can only
be said to breathe freely. Mabel will tell you that such was
my intention, before a word was said on the subject.”

“And what does Mabel think would come of such a
change? She knows that a man has his gifts, and that it is
as useless to pretend to others, as to withstand them that
come from Providence. I am a hunter, and a scout, or a
guide, Saltwater, and it is not in me to fly so much in the
face of heaven, as to try to become any thing else. Am I
right, Mabel, or are you so much a woman as to wish to see
a natur' altered?”

“I would wish to see no change in you, Pathfinder,” Mabel
answered with a cordial sincerity and frankness, that went
directly to the hunter's heart; “and much as my uncle admires
the sea, and great as is all the good that he thinks may
come of it, I could not wish to see the best and noblest hunter
of the woods transformed into an admiral. Remain what
you are, my brave friend, and you need fear nothing, short
of the anger of God.”

“Do you hear this, Saltwater?—Do you hear what the
serjeant's daughter is saying, and she is much too upright
and fair-minded, and pretty, not to think what she says. So
long as she is satisfied with me as I am, I shall not fly in the
face of the gifts of Providence, by striving to become
anything else. I may seem useless, here, in a garrison, but
when we get down among the Thousand Islands, there may
be an opportunity to prove that a sure rifle is sometimes a
God-send.”

“You are then to be of our party?” said Mabel, smiling
so frankly and so sweetly on the guide, that he would have
followed her to the end of the earth. “I shall be the only
female with the exception of one soldier's wife, and shall feel

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none the less secure, Pathfinder, because you will be among
our protectors.”

“The serjeant would do that, Mabel, the serjeant would
do that, though you were not of his kin. No one will overlook
you. I should think your uncle, here, would like an
expedition of this sort, where we shall go with sails, and have
a look at an inland sea?”

“Your inland sea is no great matter, Master Pathfinder,
and I expect nothing from it. I confess, however, I should
like to know the object of the cruise, for one does not wish to
be idle, and my brother-in-law, the serjeant, is as close-mouthed
as a freemason. Do you know, Mabel, what all
this means?”

“Not in the least, uncle. I dare not ask my father any
questions about his duty, for he thinks it is not a woman's
business, and all I can say is that we are to sail as soon as
the wind will permit, and that we are to be absent a month.”

“Perhaps, Master Pathfinder can give me a useful hint;
for a v'y'ge without an object is never pleasant to an old
sailor.”

“There is no great secret, Saltwater, concerning our port
and object, though it is forbidden to talk much about either
in the garrison. I am no soldier, however, and can use my
tongue as I please, though as little given as another to idle
conversation, I hope; still, as we sail so soon, and you are
both to be of the party, you may as well be told where you
are to be carried. You know that there are such things as
the Thousand Islands, I suppose, Master Cap?”

“Ay, what are so called, hereaway, though I take it for
granted that they are not real islands, such as we fall in with
on the ocean; and that the thousand means some such matter
as two or three, like the killed and wounded of a great
battle.”

“My eyes are good, and yet have I often been foiled in
trying to count them very islands.”

“Ay—ay—I 've known people who could n't count beyond
a certain number. Your real land-birds never know their
own roosts, even in a land-fall at sea; they are what I call
all things to all men. How many times have I seen the
beach, and houses and churches, when the passengers have
not been able to see anything but water! I have no idea that

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a man can get fairly out of sight of land, on fresh-water.
The thing appears to me to be irrational and impossible.”

“You don't know the lakes, Master Cap, or you would
not say that. Before we get to the Thousand Islands, you
will have other notions of what natur' has done in this wilderness.”

“I have my doubts whether you have such a thing as a
real island in all this region. To my notion, fresh-water
can't make a bony fidy island; not what I call an island.”

“We 'll show you hundreds of them—not exactly a thousand,
perhaps, but so many that eye cannot see them all, or
tongue count them.”

“And what sort of things may they be?”

“Land with water entirely around them.”

“Ay, but what sort of land, and what sort of water? I 'll
engage, when the truth comes to be known, they 'll turn out
to be nothing but peninsulas, or promontories, or continents;
though these are matters, I dare say, of which you know
little or nothing. But islands or no islands, what is the object
of the cruise, Master Pathfinder?”

“Why as you are the serjeant's brother, and pretty Mabel
here is his daughter, and we are all to be of the party, there
can be no harm in giving you some idea of what we are going
to do. Being so old a sailor, Master Cap, you 've heard,
no doubt, of such a port as Frontenac?”

“Who hasn't? I will not say I 've ever been inside the
harbour, but I 've frequently been off the place.”

“Then you are about to go upon ground with which you are
acquainted, though how you could ever have got there, from
the ocean, I do not understand. These great lakes, you
must know, make a chain, the water passing out of one
into the other, until it reaches Erie, which is a sheet off here
to the westward, as large as Ontario itself. Well, out of
Erie the water comes, until it reaches a low mountain like,
over the edge of which it passes—”

“I should like to know how the devil it can do that?”

“Why easy enough, Master Cap,” returned Pathfinder
laughing, “seeing that it has only to fall down hill. Had I
said the water went up the mountain, there would have been
natur' ag'in it; but we hold it no great matter for water to
run down hill—that is, fresh water.”

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“Ay—ay—but you speak of the water of a lake's coming
down the side of a mountain; it 's in the teeth of reason, if
reason has any teeth.”

“Well—well—we will not dispute the point; but what
I 've seen, I 've seen: as for reason's having any teeth, I 'll
say nothing; but conscience has, and sharp ones too. After
getting into Ontario, all the water of all the lakes passes down
into the sea, by a river; and in the narrow part of the sheet
where it is neither river nor lake, lie the islands spoken of.
Now, Frontenac is a post of the Frenchers above these same
islands; and as they hold the garrison below, their stores
and ammunition are sent up the river to Frontenac, to be forwarded
along the shores of this and the other lakes, in order
to enable the enemy to play his deviltries among the savages,
and to take Christian scalps.”

“And will our presence prevent these horrible acts?”
demanded Mabel, with interest.

“It may, or it may not, as Providence wills. Lundie, as
they call him, he who commands this garrison, sent a party
down to take a station among the islands, to cut off some of
the French boats; and this expedition of ours will be the
second relief. As yet they 've not done much, though two
batteaux loaded with Indian goods have been taken; but a
runner came in, last week, and brought such tidings that the
major is about to make a last effort to circumvent the knaves.
Jasper knows the way, and we shall be in good hands, for
the serjeant is prudent, and of the first quality at an ambushment—
yes, he is both prudent and alert.”

“Is this all!” said Cap, contemptuously—“by the preparations
and equipments, I had thought there was a forced
trade in the wind, and that an honest penny might be turned,
by taking an adventure. I suppose there are no shares in
your fresh-water prize-money?”

“Anan?”

“I take it for granted the king gets all, in these soldiering
parties, and ambushments, as you call them?”

“I know nothing about that, Master Cap. I take my share
of the lead and powder, if any falls into our hands, and say
nothing to the king about it. If any one fares better, it is not
I—though it is time I did begin to think of a house, and furniture,
and a home.”

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