Now, Catharine cared as little as her brother and cousin about passing
a warm summer's night under the shade of the forest trees, for she was
both hardy and healthy; but her woman's heart taught her that the
surest means of reconciling the cousins would be by mutually
interesting them in the same object,--and she was right. In
endeavouring to provide for the comfort of their dear companion, all
angry feelings were forgotten by Hector, while active employment
chased away Louis's melancholy.

Unlike the tall, straight, naked trunks of the pines of the forest,
those of the plains are adorned with branches often to the very
ground, varying in form and height, and often presenting most
picturesque groups, or rising singly among scattered groves of the
silver-barked poplar or graceful birch trees; the dark mossy greenness
of the stately pine contrasting finely with the light waving foliage
of its slender, graceful companions.

Hector, with his axe, soon lopped boughs from one of the adjacent
pines, which Louis sharpened with his knife and, with Catharine's
assistance, drove into the ground, arranging them in such a way as to
make the upturned oak, with its roots and the earth which adhered to
them, form the back part of the hut, which when completed formed by no
means a contemptible shelter. Catharine then cut fern and deer grass
with Louis's _couteau de chasse_, which he always carried in a sheath
at his girdle, and spread two beds,--one, parted off by dry boughs and
bark, for herself, in the interior of the wigwam; and one for her
brother and cousin, nearer the entrance. When all was finished to her
satisfaction she called the two boys, and, according to the custom of
her parents, joined them in the lifting up of their hands as an
evening sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Nor were these