An Unexpected Meeting.

The brief summer had fled, and autumn, with its bright sunshine and invigorating frosts, had returned to the Far North, when one day, during that short delightful period styled the Indian summer, our friend MacSweenie and his inseparable henchman Mowat sauntered down to the beach in front of the new fort.

“Iss it here the canoe wass lyin’, Tonal’?”

“Ay, yonder it is, just beyond the palin’, bottom up.”

“Man, this iss fine weather—whatever.”

“It is that,” replied Mowat, who could hardly have replied otherwise, for the fact did not admit of a doubt.

There was an intense brilliancy yet a hazy softness in the air, which was particularly exhilarating. Trumpeting wild-geese, piping plover, the whistling wings of wild-ducks, and the notes of other innumerable feathered tribes, large and small, were filling the woods and swamps with the music of autumnal revelry, as they winged their way to southern lands. Every view was beautiful; all the sounds were cheerful. An absolute calm prevailed, so that the lake-like expanse in front of the fort formed a perfect mirror in which the cliffs and brilliant foliage of the opposite banks were clearly reflected.

“We will go down to the bend o’ the ruver,” said MacSweenie, as they launched their canoe, “an’ hide in the bushes there. It iss a grand spote for birds to fly over, an’ there’s plenty o’ ducks an’ geese, so we may count on soon gettin’ enough to fill the larder to overflow.”

“Ay, there’s plenty o’ birds,” remarked Mowat, with the absent air of a man whose mind is running on some other theme.

MacSweenie was a keen sportsman, and dearly loved a day with his gun. As a boy, on his own Highland hills, he had been addicted to sporting a good deal without the formality of a licence, and the absolute freedom from conventional trammels in the wild North was a source of much gratulation to him. Perhaps he enjoyed his outings all the more that he was a stern disciplinarian—so deeply impressed with a sense of duty that he would neither allow himself nor his men to indulge in sport of any kind until business had been thoroughly disposed of.

“It hes often seemed to me,” he said, steering towards the bend of the river above referred to, “that ceevilisation was a sort o’ mistake. Did ye ever think o’ that, Tonal’?”

“I can’t say that I ever did. But if it is a mistake, it’s a very successful one—to judge from the way it has spread.”

“That iss true, Tonal’, an’ more’s the peety. I cannot but think that man was meant to be a huntin’ animal, and to get his victuals in that way. What for wass he gifted wi’ the power to hunt, if it wass not so? An’ think what enjoyment he hes in the chase until ceevilisation takes all the speerit out o’ him. H’m! It never took the speerit out o’ me, whatever.”

“Maybe there wasn’t enough o’ ceevilisation in the place where you was brought up,” suggested the interpreter.

“Ha! ye hev me there, Tonal’,” returned the trader, with a short laugh. “Weel, I must admit that ye’re not far wrong. The muddle o’ the Grampians iss but a wildish place, an’ it wass there my father had his sheep-farm an’ that I first made the acquaintance o’ the muir-cock an’ the grouse. O man! but there’s no place like the Heeland hills after a’, though the wild-woods here iss not that bad. Tonal’, man, catch hold o’ that bush an’ draw close in to the bank. There’s a flock comin’, an’ they’re fleein’ low.”

The last words were spoken in a hoarse whisper, for they had just turned the bend of the river, and MacSweenie had caught sight of a flock of wild-geese, flying low, as he said, and crossing over the land, which at that place jutted out into the stream.

Mowat, though naturally sluggish, was quick in action when circumstances required him to be so. The canoe was drawn close under an overhanging bush, and quite concealed by it. The two men, laying down the paddles, took up their guns and examined the priming to see that it was dry, long before the flock drew near. Then they sat motionless and silent, crouching a little and looking upwards.

The unsuspicious flock of wild-geese came over the point in that curious angular formation in which they usually travel—an old grey gander, as usual, leading. A deep trumpet-note now and then told of their approach. Then the soft stroke of their great wings was heard. Next moment the flock appeared over the edge of the bush that concealed their human ............