The boys looked sorrowfully at each other. At last the old man stopped for want of breath, and remarked their sad looks.
“What, mes fils, are your parents dead? Ah well! I did not think to have outlived them; but they have not led such healthy lives as old Jacob Morelle—hunting, fishing, lumbering, trapping,—those are the things to harden a man and make him as tough as a stock-fish—eh! mes enfans, is it not so?”
Hector then told the old lumberer how long they had been separated from their families, and by what sad accident they had been deprived of the society of their beloved sister. When they brought their narrative down to the disappearance of Catharine, the whole soul of the old trapper seemed moved—he started from the log on which they were sitting, and with one of his national asseverations, declared “That la bonne fille should not remain an hour longer than he could help among those savage wretches. Yes, he, her father’s old friend, would go up the river and bring her back in safety, or leave his grey scalp behind him among the wigwams.”
“It is too late, Jacob, to think of starting today,” said Hector. “Come home with us, and eat some food, and rest a bit.”
“No need of that, my son. I have a lot of fish here in the canoe, and there is an old shanty on the island yonder, if it be still standing,—the Trapper’s Fort I used to call it some years ago. We will go off to the island and look for it.”
“No need for that,” replied Louis, “for though I can tell you the old place is still in good repair, for we used it this very spring as a boiling house for our maple sap, yet we have a better place of our own nearer at hand—just two or three hundred yards over the brow of yonder hill. So come with us, and you shall have a good supper, and bed to lie upon.”
“And you have all these, boys!” said Jacob opening his merry black eyes, as they came in sight of the little log-house and the field of green corn. The old man praised the boys for their industry and energy. “Ha! here is old Wolfe too,” as the dog roused himself from the hearth and gave one of his low grumbling growls. He had grown dull and dreamy, and instead of going out as usual with the young hunters, he would lie for hours dozing before the dying embers of the fire. He pined for the loving hand that used to pat his sides, and caress his shaggy neck, and pillow his great head upon her lap, or suffer him to put his huge paws upon her shoulders, while he licked her hands and face; but she was gone, and the Indian girl was gone, and the light of the shanty had gone with them. Old Wolfe seemed dying of sorrow.
That evening as Jacob sat on the three-legged stool, smoking his short Indian pipe, he again would have the whole story of their wanderings over, and the history of all their doings and contrivances.
“And how far, mes enfans, do you think you are from the Cold Springs?”
“At least twenty miles, perhaps fifty, for it is a long long time now since we left home, three summers ago.”