A New Disaster.  
“I mean to go off to-morrow on a shooting trip to the lake,” said Dan Davidson to Archie Sinclair. “I’ve had a long spell at farming operations of late, and am tired of it. The double wedding, you know, comes off in six weeks. So I want to have one more run in the wilderness in all the freedom of bachelorhood. Will you go with me?”
 
“‘Unpossible,’ as Jenkins would say,” answered Archie. “Nothing would please me better, but, duty before pleasure! I’ve promised to spend a week along wi’ Little Bill at the Whitehorse Plains. Billie has taken a great fancy to that chief o’ the half-breeds, Cuthbert Grant, and we are goin’ to visit him. I’ve no doubt that Little Bill would let me off, but I won’t be let off.”
 
“Then I must ask Okématan to go with me,” said Dan.
 
“You needn’t trouble yourself, for I heard him say that he was goin’ off to see some o’ his relations on important business—a great palaver o’ some sort—and Elise told me this morning that she saw him start yesterday.”
 
“Morel is too busy with his new farm to go,” rejoined Dan, “and Jenkins is too busy helping Morel. Perhaps Dechamp or Bourassin may be more at leisure. I will go see.”
 
But on search being made, neither Dechamp nor Bourassin was to be found, and our hero was returning home with the intention of taking a small hunting canoe and going off by himself, when he chanced to meet with La Certe.
 
That worthy seemed unusually depressed, and returned Dan’s greeting with very little of his habitual cheerfulness.
 
“What’s wrong with you, Fran?ois?” asked Dan, anxiously.
 
“Domestic infelicity,” answered La Certe, with a sorrowful shake of the head.
 
“What! surely Slowfoot has not taken to being unkind to you?”
 
“O no! Slowfoot could not be unkind, but she is unhappy; she has lost her cheerful looks; she does not take everything as she once did; she does not now let everything go anyhow with that cheerful resignation which was once her delightful characteristic. She no longer hands the pipe of peace to our little one—indeed she refuses to let it have the pipe at all, though the poor child cries for it, and comes to me secretly, when Slowfoot is out of the way, to beg for a draw. Then, she scolds me—no, she does not scold. Slowfoot cannot scold. She is too amiable—but she remonstrates, and that is worse than scolding, for it enlists myself against myself. O! I am now miserable. My days of peace are gone!”
 
“This is all very sad, La Certe,” said Dan, in a tone of sympathy. “What does she remonstrate about?”
 
“About my laziness! She does it very kindly, very gently—so like her old self!—but she does it. She says, ‘Husband; we have gone on this way too long. We must change. You must change. You are lazy!’”
 
“Well, La Certe,” said Dan, “I’m afraid that Slowfoot is right.”
 
“I know she is right!” retorted the half-breed, with more of exasperation in his manner than his friend had ever before seen in him. “When that which is said of one is false, one can afford to smile, but when it is true what can one say? Yet it is hard—very hard. You are full of energy; you love to expend it, and you search for work. It is natural—and what is natural must be right. So, I am full of laziness. I love to indulge it, and I search for repose. That is also natural, and what is natural must be right. Voilà!”
 
“Then I suppose your love for repose,” returned Dan, “will oblige you to decline an offer which I thought of making to you.”
 
“What is that?”
 
“To go with me on a shooting expedition to Lake Winnipeg for a week or two.”
 
“O no! I will not decline that,” returned La Certe, brightening up. “Shooting is not labour. It is amusement, with labour sufficient to make after-repose delightful. And I will be glad to leave my home for a time, for it is no longer the abode of felicity.”
 
This having been satisfactorily arranged, preparations made, and Slowfoot advised of her husband’s intention, Dan went to Ben Nevis Hall next morning to bid farewell to Elspie for a brief period. He found only old McKay in the Hall, Elspie having gone up the Settlement, or down the Settlement—the man did not know which—to call on a friend.
 
“See that ye will not be long o’ comin’ back, Tan,” he said. “There will be a good many arranchments to make, you see.”
 
“I hope to be back in three weeks at latest,” said Dan, “if all goes well.”
 
“Ay, if all goes well,” repeated the old man, thoughtfully. “As Elspie says sometimes, ‘We never know what a day may bring furth.’ Well, well, see that you will not be upsetting your canoe, for canoes are cranky things—whatever.”
 
In a short time our hero and La Certe found themselves floating once more on the calm breast of the mighty inland sea.
 
It was afternoon. The circumstances were eminently conducive to the felicity which is derivable from repose, and thus admirably suited to the tastes of La Certe. An unruffled sheet of glassy water lay spread out to the north-western horizon, which not only doubled the canoe and its occupants, but reflected the golden glory of the sun, and mirrored every fleecy cloudlet in the bright blue sky. A mere dip of the paddles now and then served to give impulse to the light, and literal, bark. Genial warmth pervaded the atmosphere, and little white gulls floated almost motionless on outspread wings, or sloped hither and thither with lazy flap, while ever and anon the whistling wings of passing wild-fowl gave promise of occupation to their guns, to say nothing of their kettles.
 
On their third day out, towards evening, they went ashore on the lee-side of a rocky point where some bushes and trees seemed to offer firewood and shelter.
 
“This will do,” said Dan, as he stepped lightly out on a shelving rock and held the canoe while his companion took out the lading. “Plenty dry sticks and lots of moss for bedding.”
 
“Truly, that is so,” returned La Certe. “It is a place in which Slowfoot would rejoice to repose, and the little one to smoke its pipe.”
 
“You forget,” said Dan. “T............