he was--a French Canadian. Close at his heels, and moving
as he moved, or squatted on his haunches, gazing into
the face of his master when stationary, was a large dog
of the mongrel breed peculiar to the country--evidently
with wolf blood in his veins.

His companion was of a different style of figure and
costume. He was a thin, weak-looking man, of middle
height, with a complexion that denoted his Saxon origin.
Very thin brows, retrousse nose, and a light gray eye in
which might be traced an expression half simple, half
cunning, completed the picture of this personage, whose
lank body was encased in an old American uniform of faded
blue, so scanty in its proportions that the wrists of
the wearer wholly exposed themselves beneath the short,
narrow sleeves, while the skirts only "shadowed not
concealed," that part of the body they had been originally
intended to cover. A pair of blue pantaloons, perfectly
in keeping, on the score of scantiness and age, with the
coat, covered the attenuated lower limbs of the wearer,
on whose head, moreover, was stuck a conical cap that
had all the appearance of having been once a portion of
the same uniform, and had only undergone change in the
loss of its peak. A small black leather, narrow ridged
stock was clasped around his thin, and scare-crow neck,
and that so tightly that it was the wonder of his companions
how strangulation had so long been avoided. A dirty, and
very coarse linen shirt, showed itself partially between
the bottom of the stock, and the uppermost button of the
coat, which was carefully closed, while his feet were