uneventful.

Twelve days after leaving Liverpool they were, however, awakened early
one morning by feeling the express-train suddenly slacken speed. The
big cars shook with a violent jarring, and George hurriedly swung
himself down from his upper berth. He had some difficulty in getting
into his jacket and putting on his boots, but he pushed through the
startled passengers and sprang down upon the track before the train
quite stopped. He knew that accidents were not uncommon in the wilds
of northern Ontario.

Ragged firs rose, dripping, against the rosy glow in the eastern sky,
with the narrow gap, hewed out for the line, running through their
midst. Some had been stripped of their smaller branches by fire, and
leaned, dead and blackened, athwart each other. Beneath them, shallow
pools gleamed in the hollows of the rocks, which rose in rounded masses
here and there, and the gravel of the graded track was seamed by water
channels. George remembered having heard the roar of heavy rain and a
crash of thunder during the night, but it was now wonderfully still and
fresh, and the resinous fragrance of the firs filled the chilly air.

Walking forward, clear of the curious passengers who poured from the
cars, he saw a lake running back into the woods. A tall water-tank
stood on the margin with a shanty, in which George imagined a telegraph
operator was stationed, at its foot. Ahead, the great locomotive was
pouring out a cloud of sooty smoke. When George reached it he waited
until the engineer had finished talking to a man on the line.

"What are we stopping for? Has anything gone wrong?" he asked.