for his sharp watch on them. daring and skillful a fellow was he, that he eluded the watch, scaled the twenty feet palisade, and carried off his booty. After this he was chosen a chief of the tribe, and word soon reached the fort that he was planning expeditions of a more extensive character. Mr. Mackenzie, grew a favorite with the Indians, and one day the well known bourgeois of the Northwest Com-induced eighteen of them to run away with him pany, once narrowly escaped being murdered by on a voyage of discovery. The Indians were some of them. They were on a hunting-party overtaken by a party sent from the fort, and under his command, and persisted, contrary to persuaded to return; but Jacob made his escape, his orders, in trafficking on their own account and associated himself with a wild native tribe with the Indians whom they met. To put a in the neighborhood. In order to win their stop to these practices, a quarrel having arisen | confidence, he offered to rob the fort; and so between a Nez Percé Indian and an Iroquois about a horse which the latter had purchased, Mr. Mackenzie drew a pistol and shot the horse dead. For this the Iroquois resolved to murder him. He soon won over the other men of his tribe, and while Mr. Mackenzie was asleep in his tent, a little before the break of day, they started on their murderous expedition. Fortunately for the white leader, one of his servants heard their footsteps and aroused his master just as the Iroquois and one of his companions rushed into the tent. Mackenzie tried to seize his pistols, but could not find them in the darkness; but, being a very powerful man, he grasped one of the tent-poles and knocked down the first and second of his assailants as fast as they appeared; this gave the servant time to rouse a few faithful Canadians, who very quickly put the other Iroquois to flight. The best men in that country are the French-ed from him; but he contrived to draw a knife, Canadians and the half-breeds. Some of the latter, as the old hunters gravely say, acquire loose notions and bad principles from associating with the independent whites and vagabonds-the white trash, as a Southerner would say—who are occasionally to be found in the Northwest country; but these are the exception, not the rule; and all the half-breeds are strong, brave, and indefatigable. The worst men in the Northwest are the white stragglers who come there by accident, from vagabondage, or to escape the hands of justice. Mr. Ross, like all the other officers of the great fur corporations, regards the service of "the Company" as the only possible guarantee of respectability in the fur regions; this may be doubted by persons who do not live in the fear of Sir George Simpson; but at the same time, it is quite easy to understand how the forts, especially those on the sea-board, are occasionally infested by some of the vilest human vermin that breathe. The thief-the murdereris secure from justice in the Northwest territory; let him have strength and industry, and he may lead a life of royal independence and plenty by the side of the silent rivers of the Far West, in the midst of Indians whose confidence he may easily win, and over whom he may soon exercise the influence belonging to his superior mind. One of these fellows Mr. Ross met at Fort George, on the Columbia. He was a Russian named Jacob, who was brought thither in irons for mutiny in a Boston vessel. He made such fair promises of amendment, that the commander at the fort ventured to give him his liberty, and set him to work at the forge. But he soon developed under his true colors. He It was absolutely necessary to free the country of so desperate a vagabond. With forty well-armed men, Mr. Ross set out, and marched straight to the encampment of the tribe which Jacob had honored with his company. A spy gave him information as to the locality of his tent, and when night had fairly set in, Mr. Ross, with two powerful men, followed the guide to the spot indicated. As they approached, the sound of their footsteps betrayed them, and two shots were fired at them in rapid succession from the tent. As they rushed in, Jacob was in the act of seizing a third gun. It was wrest and inflicted a terrible wound on one of his captors. The three, however, were too many for him; he was knocked down, handcuffed, and carried off. The Company's officers might have settled Jacob's business for him; but they preferred keeping him in irons till a ship arrived, and then sending him out of the country. When they put him in the boat to convey him on board the ship, he rose, took off his old Russian cap, and giving three loud cheers, cried, “Confusion to all my enemies!" A pleasant companion for a lonely place was Jacob! It was while Ross was in the service of the Northwest Company that the council at Fort William resolved to transfer the central dépôt of their trade on the Columbia to the spot where Lewis and Clarke had made their great treaty with the Indians some thirteen years before. It was in the heart of the country of the fierce Nez Percés Indians, and was considered a post of no small danger. Ross was named to the command. The site is one of the most beautiful in the Western country, being on the bank of the Columbia at a point where it expands into a small lake, and in the centre of a fertile and picturesque region. At first, the adventurers met with the usual, and more than the usual difficulties. The Indians assembled and complained of the encroachments of the whites. What they offered to sell they valued at enormous prices, and for a few days the pioneers actually suffered from want of food. Then the red men offered to come to terms if the whites would give each of them a present. Ross yielded to none of their demands, but patiently negotiated, and waited, and argued, until he wore them out. The whites were too formidable to be easily expelled by force; the Indians agreed at last to trade with them, and the building of the fort commenced. It is considered the strongest of the Company's forts on the west of the Rocky Mountains-the Gibraltar of the Columbia. Four pieces of ordnance, of from one to three pounds, ten swivels, sixty stand of muskets, twenty boarding-pikes, and a box of hand-grenades constitute its weapons of defense. It is strengthened by four strong wooden towers or bastions, and the gate is provided with a sort of rude portcullis. canoe-man; I required but little sleep, but some- Mr. Ross's happiness was not destined to last long. On the 19th June, 1816, Governor Semple, of the Hudson's Bay Company, heard that a party of Northwesters were advancing on the Earl of Selkirk's infant colony at Red River. With more courage than discretion he immediately armed twenty-two men, and marched out to meet them. The parties met, quarreled, shots were fired, and Governor Semple and his twenty-two men were all killed on the spot. The trials which followed; the "private war" which was carried on between the rival com In this castle Mr. Ross began to enjoy the life of a bourgeois. Most readers are doubtless aware that a bourgeois is the chief of a trading post or dépôt; it is the dignity to which all hunters aspire, as being, next to a partnership, the highest reward earth can offer them. Nor is the life of a bourgeois in any wise unworthy of the ambition it awakens. The bourgeois, like Robinson in his isle, is lord of all he surveys. The hunters and Indians are his slaves. His income provides him with every luxury and comfort which the forest affords, and enables him to procure many foreign luxuries which are far beyond the reach of men with the same stipend in civilized countries. Some excellent private libraries are to be found at the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. Some of the best Port and Madeira in America is stored in their cellars. The bourgeois leads a life of delightful leisure. Once a year for a few weeks, at the time of the annual migration of the hunters, he is kept busily employed in fitting out parties, and forwarding couriers with dispatches. The remainder of the twelve months he can spend in study agreeably diversified by the chase. Nor is society wanting. Many of the hunters of the fur companies-like Mr. Ross-panies; the seizure of Fort William by the Earl are well-educated men, who have taken to the woods from love of sport and adventure. They invariably marry the whitest girl they can find; and thus round each fort a small circle of society is formed, which is said to be pleasant and even refined. The balls which used to be given at Spokane House-the old central dépôt of the Northwest Company-are celebrated to this day. It is impossible to persuade an In their service he undertook one of the first old Northwester that Paris itself contains pret-great hunting and trapping expeditions that tier girls, more lovely dresses, more graceful dancing, better music, and pleasanter parties generally. If any cavil, let them go and see. That there is a strange fascination in life in the wilderness, is proved not only by the nostalgia which every hunter feels after he has left the country, but by the wonderful tenacity with which the voyageurs, who enjoy so few of the comforts allotted to the bourgeois, cling to their wretched calling. Their stories remind one of Robin Hood and his merry men, without the windfalls from fat priors and the flagons of brimming wine. Mr. Ross met an old French Canadian who was over sixty, and took down his story in his own language. "I have now," said he, "been forty-two years in this country. For twenty-four I was a light of Selkirk; and the untimely death of twentythree out of the forty-five victorious Northwesters, are now matters of history. The Northwest Company was manifestly in the wrong, and few tears were shed when it gave up the ghost a few years afterward. Mr. Ross was endorsed over with other property to the Hudson's Bay Company. were ever made into the territory of the Snake Indians. His party consisted of fifty-five men, of whom two were Americans, seventeen Canadians, five half-breeds, and the rest Indians of various tribes. As hunting is the normal condition of these people, they took with them their wives and children-twenty-five of the former, and sixty-four of the latter in all. The baggage of the party consisted of seventyfive guns, a brass three-pounder, beaver traps, 392 horses, ammunition in abundance, and a few trading articles. They carried no provisions with them, but trusted to the luck of the hunters for their daily supply. The main game of the party was, of course, the beaver. When they found a safe and secure spot, near a stream whose banks bore Buffalo meat is a more popular dish than beaver. In the Snake country, when Mr. Ross visited it, buffaloes were plentiful, and his hunters had many a glorious feast, which was enjoyed all the more for the spice of danger which accompanied the chase. Inured as the Northwest hunters are to peril, there are few among the boldest who can stand and look coolly at a wounded buffalo, so terrible is the gaze of his hideous eye. If he is able to move, and the hunter's gun is empty, let him look for a tree, or bid adieu to earth. And even when the poor brute can not stir, but stands propped up on his legs, glaring wildly on the hunters, it is safe to put a final ball through his head before stepping up to him and pushing him over. traces of the animal, they encamped, and each | must be taken, however, to examine the herbhunter sallied forth at evening to set his six age on which the animals feed, or mischief may traps. At early dawn the traps were visited, follow an unwary repast. Mr. Ross's party the beaver taken out, and the traps reset. Then were once poisoned by feasting heartily on the hunters spent the day in idleness-smoking beaver, and some of them had a very narrow and spinning yarns in the camp, till the fall of escape. The Indians eat this kind of beaver, night warned them to visit their traps again. but they roast it; boiled, they say, it is perniBy no means a despicable life in fine weather, cious. and when the Indians kept aloof. The latter piece of good fortune seldom fell to their lot; the trappers went forth to the river with their traps in one hand and gun in the other. One day a band of Indians would loom up in the distance, and hover round menacingly till the whites resolved to make an end of them, and charging unexpectedly would scatter them like a flock of birds, and perhaps find on the spot they had vacated a bundle of wet scalps. At another time the wild men would succeed in carrying off a few of their horses, and defy pursuit. Sometimes the Indians would show fight. A hunter named M'Donald, trapping with a large party in the Snake country, was suddenly attacked by a band of Piegans. The camp secured, M'Donald started with his best men to give battle. The Indians did not flinch; one fellow held a scalp on the top of a pole, and waved it, yelling and screeching, and his comrades stood their ground till twenty of them fell. The survivors, losing courage, fled precipitately into a coppice of wood near the battle-field. But three of the whites had been killed, and their companions were determined to avenge their death according to Northwest rule. M'Donald sent to the camp for buckshot, and when it arrived poured volley after volley into the coppice, the Indians lying concealed within. While this murderous work was going on, a Canadian challenged an Iroquois to enter the coppice and scalp a savage with him. The challenge was accepted, and the two set off together, holding each other by the hand, and each grasping a scalping-knife in the other. When they were within a few feet of a Piegan, the Iroquois cried to the Canadian, “I will scalp this fellow; do you find another!" But as he stretched out his hand to seize him, the Piegan shot him through the head, and so bespattered the Canadian with his brains that he was blinded, and ran hastily back to his comrades. M'Donald then resolved to set fire to the bush. It was decided that the oldest man should apply the firebrand, and a poor, wrinkled old fellow advanced with it, trembling in every limb, and expecting instant death. He performed his task in safety, and in a few minutes the whole coppice was in a blaze. As the poor half-roasted Piegans emerged, the hunters took aim at them leisurely, and brought them down one by one; the Iroquois rushing in to finish the work with the knife. Out of seventy-five warriors only seven escaped the horrid mas sacre. The beaver are not only valuable for their skin, but serve as food for the hunter. Care More ferocious still is the Northwestern wolf, an animal of wonderful strength and sagacity. As a general rule the bear and the buffalo will not attack man; but in spring the wolf flies at every living thing he sees. Horses are his usual prey, and them he pursues with almost human cunning. When a band of wolves discover a horse, they encamp at some little distance, all the troop squatting on their hams except two old fellows, who sally forth toward the horse. He is frightened at first by his visitors; but they gambol so pleasantly in the field, and look so innocent and friendly, that by degrees his terror subsides, and he continues to graze. Then the wolves slowly separate, one going to the front of the horse, the other to his rear, and both frisking about as amiably, and apparently as unconcerned as before. Slowly and cautiously they approach the doomed steed with equal steps; when they are within springing distance —they can cover over twenty feet at a bound— both dash at him together, one at his head, the other at his hamstrings. Horses are proverbially helpless under some circumstances; this is one of them. The most the poor creature does is to turn round and round, uttering cries of pain. In a few seconds the wolf who attacked him from behind-this being the main attackhas cut the sinews of his legs, and he falls helplessly to the ground. Then the whole pack come rushing down, howling, and each eager to tear a morsel from the living carcass. There is little left for the vultures. The hunters sometimes catch wolves in steel traps; but the animals frequently run off with the traps, heavy as they are, or gnaw their legs off and leave them there. When the hunters surprise them before the amputation is performed, all thought of safety is forgotten in their rage. With teeth broken and bloody headwith their leg fractured, and clinging to the trap by the sinews only-they will fly at their enemy, and even then, it is well for the hunter to make | snow, while another applied the whip behind. sure of his aim. Some of the Indians catch wolves by a process which has never been illustrated save in the pages of comic periodicals. They suspend the bait on a strong fish-hook from the branch of a tree, at several feet from the ground. The wolf springs to seize it, is caught by the hook, and dangles in mid-air. In that position his strength can not help him, and he falls an easy prey to his destroyer. Needless to say that the hunters fare sumptuously. Buffalo meat, venison, bears' hams, and every description of feathered game succeed each other at their repasts as fancy prompts, till the wearied appetite seeks a repose from good things, and invents monstrous regales of mouse soup, broiled snake, and insect pie. Grasshoppers and crickets are an especial delicacy. Apicius, in the Far West, toasts his grasshoppers till they crackle like grains of gunpowder dropped into a frying-pan; a handful of these are the greatest luxury you can offer him. The tough old voyageur, who has shot his own hack when hard pressed for a meal, will leave the savory platter of vension, bear's fat, wappatoes, and obellies, to chew a stringy piece of horse-flesh. And many an Indian will turn up his nose at the most appetizing product of the white man's caldron, in order to feast himself in private on the ribs of a dog. It is painful to reflect that the monsters who are guilty of these horrors are more plentifully supplied with that prince of fish, the salmon, than any other people in the world. In the spring the salmon swim up the rivers on the Pacific slope, not in shoals, but in beds. They are speared, hooked, trapped, butchered by the thousand. Twenty thousand fish in a day is no extraordinary haul for a hunting-party. A cheap knife, such as sells for sixpence in our marine shores, is worth fifty salmon; a pin or a nail will purchase a dozen. Let us console ourselves with the reflection that Oregon will soon be peopled. The animal plunged until it was exhausted; it was left standing with nothing but its head and ears above the surface. A second was then led forward in the same way, through the track of the first, and was thus enabled to make a few plunges further on; then a third, and so on to the eightieth. When the last horse was left in the snow, there was nothing to be seen but a long row of heads and ears peeping above the drift. Then the horses were dragged out one by one, and in this manner, after nine hours severe labor, 580 yards of road were made. The next day the operation was repeated, but no more than 370 yards were made. Ross persevered day after day, till most of the horses were knocked up, and only a third of the road was made. The Iroquois now again burst into rebellion. Provisions were growing scarce in the camp, and a man might well be excused for wishing to return. But Ross was immovable: cross they must, and as the horse plan had failed, some other must be tried. He sent a party into the woods to cut mallets and shovels. Dividing the working parties into couples, and providing one man with a mallet to break the crust, while his companion followed with a shovel, he began once more the terrible job. The men wrought so hard that they were hardly able to mount their horses at night. But they persevered, and after nine days' labor the road was complete, and preparations were made for a start. The agony of mind which Mr. Ross suffered during the night before the departure can well be conceived. It was a perfect calm; but had the wind begun to blow, in three or four hours the whole work would have been rendered useless; the drift would have obliterated the road. A happy man was, he when he arose on the tenth morning and found the air as still as on the night before. The caravan started from the "Valley of Troubles," as they christened their encampment, in high good-humor; and in a few hours they enjoyed the delight of looking down into the plain on the other side. On the top of the ridge bubbles a small spring into a circular pool, from which a tiny stream creeps down the mountain side. Mr. Ross stood astride of it, smoking his pipe and looking contemplatively into the waters. It is the source of the great Missouri River. Some will think that the mere pleasure of standing astride of that spring was ample recompense for the labors of the expedition, to say nothing of some 5000 beaver, and other peltries which the hunters had the satisfaction of carrying back to the dépôt. All is not pleasure, however, on these trapping expeditions. In the month of March Mr. Ross found his road blocked by a high mountain ridge. He resolved to cross it. The exploring party he sent forward on snow-shoes to examine the way, reported that the pass was twelve miles long, and the snow eight feet deep. The Iroquois attached to the expedition at once declared that it was impracticable for a party with horses and baggage, and insisted on returning. Ross was well aware of the difficulty; but he had determined to cross, so he calmly drew a pistol, placed it to the head of the Iroquois leader, and gave him his choice of proceeding with the party, or paying his debt to the Company. The Indians sulkily submitted. Then " the question was how to beat a road. They resolved to try horses. Taking eighty of the strongest, they led them to the foot of the drift. A man on snow-shoes then seized the foremost horse by the bridle, and dragged it into the "A SENTIMENT AND ACTION. GREAT gift, a great gift you ask me for, Master Paul!" said the old man, sternly, turning away his head. "But one that you will never have cause to repent bestowing on me," said Paul, eagerly. "Oh! Mr. Trevelyan, you do not know how carefully I will guard her, how tenderly I will | half-hearted temporizing between the will that reverence her, how manfully keep her from all would, and the feebleness that dare not, refuse, sorrow and all harm! You do not know how which so often holds the balance between cruelmuch I love her, nor how fervently I honor her! ty and folly. His yes would be yes indeed, and Trust me, Sir; for you may; you can bestow there would be no appeal from his first denial. her on none who will guard her more tenderly, It was a serious matter to demand a favor from more lovingly than I." him; but if a pain, at least it was not a lingering one. Paul knew that his refusal would be abrupt and decisive, and that his promise would be religiously kept. And when, after a long silence, he said, in that compressed manner of his, "You may take her, I trust you," the young artist felt that the worst of the danger was over, and that his marriage with Magdalen was certain now; for of her consent he never doubted. "Ah! all young men say the same things, boy, before marriage. Unfortunately it is only experience that distinguishes between the real and the false, love and fancy, truth and change. And if that experience prove ill-there is no repairing it, Paul !” "Yes, yes! I know all that!" said Paul, impatiently, yet not disrespectfully. "But it can never be so with me. Time, age, experience, all will only prove more firmly my love and undying truth. Oh, believe in me! believe in me! God is my witness that my life shall justify you!" "Foolish boy! to believe in the possibility of love, in the existence of constancy and happiness," murmured Mr. Trevelyan, between his closed teeth. "A day will come," he said, aloud, "when you will curse me in my grave, that I ever consented to this match; when you had rather I had slain her with my own hands than have given her to you." "Never! never!" cried Paul. "Come what may, the happiness of having once loved and been loved by her, shall suffice." Living in a dull country-house, with no pleasures beyond the insipid occupations of a young girl's drawing-room world, the visits of Paul Lefevre, the artist-poet, had given a new life to Magdalen. He had taught her painting, which of itself opened exhaustless mines of intellectual wealth before her; and he had led her to think for herself on many points which hitherto she had either never touched at all, or else thought on by rote. His gifted mind, full of beauty and poetry, was a rare treasure to Magdalen, living alone with her father-a man who denied all intellectual power and action to women; who would give them so much education as would enable them to read a cookery-book and the Bible, but who thought that a higher class of culture was both unnecessary and unfeminine. ive life, Paul, and his beauty, and his love, assumed a power and proportion they would not have had in a busier life. Want of contrast lent perfection, and want of occupation created an interest which assuredly was not born of moral sympathy or fitness. But the world of mystery in country places is always to be explained by these conditions. The old man took his hand, and looked him | earnestly in the eyes. They were sitting on a garden bench set in the shadow of a large horse-In that lonely country-place, and in that inactchestnut. Behind them rose the barren fell, with its gray granite rocks scantily covered by heath and junipers; before them lay a deep glade, flush with the richest green and bright with flowers. In the distance shone the sea, glittering like a band of silver across the opening among the trees made by that steep ravine; the white sails of the distant ships lessened into mere specks, shining in the sun like the wings The result of all those long walks together of white birds. It was one of those summer through the woods, and across the meadows, days when the sun lies like a seething fire on and upon the craggy fells-of all those lessons the leaves and grass-when the earth seems to on beauty by the piano and the easel, when art breathe and palpitate through the low heat-mist made another language between them, and inquivering over her, and Nature lies so still you terpreted mysteries which words could not reach might believe her dead: it was one of those of those mutual studies of poetry and history, days which fill the soul with nameless emotion, when the extreme limits of human thought and and make that unfulfilled longing for love and human emotion were reached, and the echoes beauty, which even the happiest and most richly of the noble chords struck then vibrated in their dowered among us feel, a passionate desire and young hearts-the result of this friendship, which a painful void; it was a day wherein we live at first was simply intellectual intercourse, was, in the true meaning of the word-because we as might have been looked for, that Paul loved feel. Perhaps it influenced even Mr. Trevelyan, Magdalen, and that Magdalen loved Paul, or although not easy to affect in any way; but there fancied that she loved him, in kind. If there are times when a subtle influence seems to per- had been some one else whom she could have vade our whole being, and to change the direc-loved-some other standard by which to meastion of all our faculties and thoughts-and this ure the requirements of her nature and the was one of them. Mr. Trevelyan was a man of calm and gentle manner, but with a nature hard, and cold, and bright as polished steel. Difficult to excite, but resolute when roused-whether for good or evil, positive, distinct, and firm-he had none of that needs of her heart-it would then have been a choice; as it was, it was only an acceptance. She accepted as likeness what was simply ignorance of diversity, and took that for understanding which was want of opportunity of judgment. She loved Paul from gratitude for |