“But I dinna like to leave you, mother, and I am sure you are taking trouble without need. He will be here by dark.”
The mother understood the affectionate motive of her child in trying to make light of her fears, but well knew her anxiety was no less than her own.
“Say nae mair, my lassie, but gang while there is time for you to get back. You ken the yarn for the Yankee wife at the Fort is ready and there is no flour until he gangs there for it.”
Casting one long eager glance down the creek, along which her father should come, the girl turned in from the door and made ready for the journey. Her preparations were easily made. The slipping on of her stoutest pair of shoes and throwing a plaid over her arm, as a hap from the cold after sunset, comprised them, and bidding her mother not to fret for she would bring back good news she started. She did not follow the creek, but struck northward across the peninsula that forms the township of Elgin, her design being to reach Trout river, as being more fordable than the wider Chateaugay. The path was, probably, at first a deer run, which the few who travelled it, chiefly lumbermen, had roughly brushed. Only one accustomed to the woods could have kept the track, for, to a stranger’s eye, it differed little from the openings which ever and anon appeared among the trees. Jeanie, however, was no novice to the path or to the bush, and she stepped quickly and with confidence on her way. She had walked about an hour beneath the solemn gloom of the primeval forest when she saw an opening ahead, and knew she was approaching Trout river. On reaching it, she followed its bank, until, with one end grounded in a little bay, she found a large log. Grasping the first straight stick she saw lying about to serve as a pole, she pushed the log from its anchorage, and stepping on it as it moved guided it across the narrow river. From the liability of the log to roll, such a mode of ferrying is dangerous to those unused to it, but Jeanie knew how to place her feet and keep her balance and speedily gained the other bank and resumed her journey. On reaching the place where the two rivers unite, she could not, despite her anxiety, help pausing to admire the beautiful expanse of water, which, unruffled by a breath of wind, lay glassing itself in the sunshine, while the forest, which rose from its margin on either side, formed no unfit setting. Presently she saw a ripple upon its surface, and her keen eye perceived the black head of a muskrat, which was making its way to the opposite bank. While she followed the rapid movements of the little creature, there was the flash and smoke of a gun before her, and, while the woods were still echoing the report, a dog jumped into the water to bring in the rat, which floated dead upon the current. A few steps brought Jeanie to the marksman, a tall, wiry man, of rather prepossessing appearance. His dog had returned and laid the rat at his master’s feet, who was encouraging him with exclamations of “Good dog! good dog!” when he caught sight of her.
“Waal neow, who would a thought it? Miss Jeanie herself and nobody else. How do you do?” And stretching forth his sinewy arm, he grasped her hand in a clutch that would have made a bear shed tears.
“Oh, I’m well, thank you, Mr Palmer, and my mother, but we’re in sore trouble.”
“Don’t say the old man is sick?” and an anxious look passed over the kindly face of the honest Yankee.
“Oh, dear sir, we dinna ken whether he’s sick or well. He left home Monday morning and was to be back next night and he hasna come yet, and I’ve come to ask after him and get help to find him if nobody knows where he is?” As she spoke there was a tremor in Jeanie’s voice, and a tear glistened on her drooping eyelashes.
“Ha, do tell; this is serious,” and the hunter leant upon his rifle and gazed abstractedly upon the river, as if trying to conjecture what could have become of the lost man, until, noting Jeanie’s evident distress, he aroused himself, and, exhorting her to keep up heart, led the way to his house.