distant, when an accident, which disabled Duncan from serving his country,
enabled him to retire with the usual little pension, and return to Quebec
to seek his affianced. Some changes had taken place during that short
period: the widow Perron was dead; Pierre, the gay, lively-hearted Pierre,
was married to the daughter of a lumberer; and Catharine, who had no
relatives in Quebec, had gone up the country with her brother and his wife,
and was living in some little settlement above Montreal with them.

Thither Duncan, with the constancy of his nature, followed, and shortly
afterwards was married to his faithful Catharine. On one point they had
never differed, both being of the same religion. Pierre had seen a good
deal of the fine country on the shores of the Ontario; he had been hunting
with some friendly Indians between the great waters and the Rice Lake, and
he now thought if Duncan and himself could make up their minds to a quiet
life in the woods, there was not a better spot than the hill pass between
the plains and the big lake to fix themselves upon. Duncan was of the same
opinion when he saw the spot. It was not rugged and bare like his own
Highlands, but softer in character, yet his heart yearned for the hill
country. In those days there was no obstacle to taking possession of any
tract of land in the unsurveyed forests, therefore Duncan agreed with his
brother-in-law to pioneer the way with him, get a dwelling put up and some
ground prepared and "seeded down," and then to, return for their wives and
settle themselves down at once as farmers. Others had succeeded, had formed
little colonies, and become the heads of villages in due time; why should
not they? And now behold our two backwoodsmen fairly commencing their
arduous life; but it was nothing, after all, to Pierre, by previous
occupation a hardy lumberer, or the Scottish soldier, accustomed to brave
all sorts of hardships in a wild country, himself a mountaineer, inured
to a stormy climate, and scanty fare, from his earliest youth. But it is
not my intention to dwell upon the trials and difficulties courageously met