CANADIAN CRUSOES.




CHAPTER I.

"The morning had shot her bright streamers on high,
O'er Canada, opening all pale to the sky;

Still dazzling and white was the robe that she wore,
Except where the ocean wave lash'd on the shore."
_Jacobite Song._

THERE lies between the Rice Lake and the Ontario, a deep and fertile
valley, surrounded by lofty wood-crowned hills, the heights of which were
clothed chiefly with groves of oak and pine, though the sides of the hills
and the alluvial bottoms gave a variety of noble timber trees of various
kinds, as the maple, beech, hemlock, and others. This beautiful and highly
picturesque valley is watered by many clear streams of pure refreshing
water, from whence the spot has derived its appropriate appellation of
"Cold Springs." At the time my little history commences, this now highly
cultivated spot was an unbroken wilderness,--all tut two small farms, where
dwelt the only occupiers of the soil,--which owned no other possessors than
the wandering hunting tribes of wild Indians, to whom the right of the
hunting grounds north of Rice Lake appertained, according to their forest
laws.

To those who travel over beaten roads, now partially planted, among
cultivated fields and flowery orchards, and see cleared farms and herds of