believing that his master was lost, uncertain as to our fate, and that he himself was hurrying to destruction. More than once he felt inclined to drop off the roof, but love of life, or rather a sense of the wickedness of so doing, prevailed, and he clung on till the hut grounded where we found it.

We were now in as secure a place as any we could find in the neighbourhood, and so Sigenok proposed seeking some necessary rest before continuing our search. We proposed going into the house to sleep, but we found that our bed-places had been carried away, and so, of course, had every particle of furniture, as the bottom of the hut had literally come out. We therefore returned to the canoe to sleep. At early dawn we once more paddled south. There was little current and a perfect calm. The waters, too, were subsiding, for several slight elevations, before submerged, were now visible. After paddling for many hours, we reached the south-western hills I have before described. Several settlers were there, but no one had seen our father. We crossed back to the eastern hills before nightfall. There were no tidings of him there. The flood subsided, and we, like others, set off to return to the now desolate site of our former abode. Sigenok conveyed us in his canoe, and we pitched our tent on the very spot our hut had occupied. In vain we searched for our father, in vain we made inquiries of other settlers, no one had seen him. Day after day we waited, thinking that he might have been swept downward with the flood clinging to a piece of timber or some other floating body, and that he might as yet be unable to return. Sam Dawes looked more and more sad when we spoke of his return. Sigenok, who had remained by us, shook his head. “He gone, no come back,” he observed. Our hearts sank within us as the sad truth forced itself on our minds that we were orphans.

IV.

Long we continued to hope against hope. Neither was our father’s body, nor were any of the cattle he was driving off ever discovered. The current must have swept them down into Lake Winnipeg.

“I ain’t much of a person for it, young masters,” said Sam Dawes, taking a hand of each of us and looking at us affectionately, “but I loves ye as sons, and I’ll be in the place of a father, that I will.”

Faithfully did Sam Dawes keep his word.

“Grief is right and does us good in the end, depend on’t, or it wouldn’t be sent; but it mustn’t make us forget duty. Now you see it is our duty to live, and we can’t live without food, and we can’t 

 Prev. P 13/149 next