“Who’d a-thought!” ejaculated his brother, while the others were speechless with amazement.
“But where do they go to?” asked one, at last.
“I’ll tell yer!” cried Jarius, as a new idea suddenly entered his head; “they drift down to the outlet and into Mad River. You know an empty boat would fare hard there; and we an’t never looked there for them.”
Mad River found its way through a narrow, rocky defile where few had ever penetrated, but an exploration into the wild region was rewarded by discovering the wrecks of two boats. Though the others were never found their disappearance was no longer a mystery.
Of course, Ralph Horn was cleared of all suspicion in the affair, and that fall there was a happy wedding at the Bede farm. We need not tell who the bride was, and we can’t tell of “the years of happiness that followed,” as story-tellers are wont to say, for it was only last week the marriage vows were spoken.
[ESKIMOS TAKE TO REINDEERS.]
A letter from Alaska in the New York Sun recently has the following interesting facts:
Of the twenty thousand reindeer under government supervision in Alaska about two thousand are above the Arctic Circle where the climate is much more severe than in their old feeding grounds in Siberia, from which they were carried by the United States revenue cutters some years ago. The reports of the local superintendents of reindeer herds will be forwarded in this, the second mail to leave the Arctic this year. These reports will show a very small increase in the herds.