accompany them, and if possible, induce him to return. They agreed, readily enough, to take him with them, and in less than an hour he was on his way to the lake. At nightfall they reached the appointed place of rendezvous, but when there, Keefe found the canoe in which Denis was, had separated from the rest of the party, and gone to a post a little higher up the lake. Keefe got the Indians to take his there the next day, but he could learn no tidings of Denis, or the Indians with whom he had gone away; and leaving directions with the most intelligent of his new friends to let him know as soon as they heard or saw anything of Denis, he went on board a scow, which was going to a settlement not very far from Long Arrow, from whence he could easily reach home. It was evening when the scow set sail, a bright warm evening, and for a while a fresh light breeze blew her steadily on her way; but as night came on, a dark cloud rose in the south-west, the air grew still, and heavy as lead, the muttering of distant thunder was heard, a deep, blood-red stain marked the sun’s setting one instant, and then night, livid and black, except where faint streams of lightning glanced along the horizon, fell over the lake. Rapidly the lightnings grew brighter, and the thunder nearer, till suddenly the sky overhead seemed to open, and a dazzling sheet of flame shot forth; then came a roll and a crash, like the rending of heaven and earth; roll upon roll, crash upon crash, succeeded; the flashes grew brighter and brighter; the waters rose into wild billows, and then came the rain, and the full swoop of the wind. The scow trembled and shivered as if her last hour was come; and but for Keefe it would have arrived speedily, for though there were three men besides him on board, only one of them in the hour of danger proved himself a good sailor. But his courage and skill rendered him worth a dozen ordinary men at such a time, and owing to his great exertions the little vessel passed safely through the perils of the night. It was not a common storm, and though at daybreak the rain ceased, and the sun broke through the black vapours that enveloped him, the wind came in fierce squalls at intervals, and the swells were tremendous. As day advanced, the heavy sea calmed somewhat, and the wind grew less violent. There no longer seemed any danger, so Keefe, and another of the sailors, who had worked the whole night, lay down to sleep. How it happened he never knew, but he woke to consciousness to find himself clinging to one of the ropes of the scow, which had turned over on her side, and was fast sinking. Letting go his hold, he succeeded, by desperate exertions, in getting clear of the wreck; then recollecting his companions, whom in his instinctive struggle for life he had forgotten, he paused to look round him. Every vestige of the scow had disappeared, not a living being was to be seen; no doubt the other poor fellows had met the fate from which Keefe had so narrowly escaped; he was not safe yet, a long stretch of rough water lay between him and the shore. By hard swimming, he reached the land, swinging himself up the high bank by the help of a friendly bough. After giving a sad thought to the memory of his drowned comrades, mingled with involuntary contempt for the careless and bad seamanship which must have caused the loss of the scow, Keefe began to think of his own situation, which to any one but a backwoodsman would have seemed full of peril. Before him was the lake, which he had no means of crossing, behind him the forest, through which he had no means of finding his way, except such signs as the trees, or the skies, afforded. He had no gun, or any other means of procuring food. The fruit trees and shrubs, whose produce might have afforded sustenance, were yet in blossom. But to an active, hardy, young woodsman these were slight difficulties. There was little doubt at this season of his soon falling in with some Indian wigwam or squatter’s shanty, if he kept along the shore, and at the worst he would only have to find his way to the port to which the scow had been bound; a wild and difficult journey, but one which Keefe never doubted being able to accomplish. At present, his first consideration was to satisfy his hunger, from which he now began to suffer, as he had not tasted food since the preceding evening, and now it was passed noon. He had his pocket-knife, and with it he soon cut a suitable fishing-rod, the tough fibres of the bush of the basswood tree served for a line, and he shaped a piece of wire, which he extracted from some part of his cap, into a hook; grubs served him for a bait, and in five minutes he had caught more greedy catfish and perch than he could eat. The next thing to be done was to cook them. His knife and a piece of flint-stone soon set light to a handful of dry moss, and withered branches to make a fire lay all around. He broiled his fish in the embers, and after eating them with a relish which only hunger can give, he finished his meal with a draught of water from the lake, and began his journey.
CHAPTER VII.
