two days' fast, these wolves are as greedy as Maquas; they would eat up everything, and let a Milicetejek starve!" And he took his bow and flint-headed arrows, and tramped away again among the hills in search of game.

A day passed-another; still he returned not. The weather was stormy and intensely cold. The winter-camp was buried in snow. A week elapsed - no Ma-dux-kees! They were starving-the two women. They said one to the other, 'Surely he has frozen to death. He threw off his skin-coat on the trail of the deer, and night overtook him and the storm, and he perished.' This was a frequent calamity, and suggested itself at once in explanation

of the hunter's absence.

It was the tenth night since they had tasted food, for their mocassins were unworthy the name; even they were demolished now.

'Hist!' said Little Moon, raising her head with difficulty from the blankets on which she lay, and listening intently. There is a sound of voices, mother-somebody comes.'

Wolves,' replied Sau-pa-lose, in a husky whisper; I hear them tramping on the snow.'

She was right, for in another instant a chorus of yells burst forth in the woods around the cabin, and the snow-crust on its roof creaked with the tread of wild animals.

Little Moon gave a shriek. A dozen gaping monsters were peering down at her from the opening in the top, ready to leap within. With a despairing effort she threw some firboughs from her couch on the smouldering fire. They crackled and ignited in a strong blaze. The wolves rushed back from the chimney, and stood in a circle gazing at the cloud of lurid smoke that ascended from the cavern. The feeble girl kept up the fire as long as the fuel lasted, but by daylight it was exhausted. The savage pack outside began to howl again, and sniff at the edge of the hole. Little Moon prayed.

Ha! what was that? A shotanother three-rang in the keen air. The wolves fled in a body. No, not all, for a drop of warm blood fell between the split cedar of the roof on the girl's hand. The light is suddenly obscured, and three

men leap into the hut. Little Moon could not speak, but she could see. They were her enemies the Mohawks, and one was the crafty Saccapee ! He knew her at once, she was certain of it, by the gleam of triumph in his eyes; but she was saved!

The men spoke to the sufferers: neither could answer. They drew back the covering from the face of Sau-pa-lose ;-she was dead! The next day they scooped a grave from the floor of the camp with their knives and hands, and buried the poor squaw.

By great care in administering thick broth made of wolf's flesh and thickened with ground maize-the survivor recovered slowly; yet not as slowly as she seemed, for she concealed her strength, being resolved at the first opportunity, to take to flight, as she preferred to die upon the snow rather than be the trader's slave and she could see that he was harbouring an evil design against her, though he held his tongue before the others.

One day the trader and an Indian went out to hunt, leaving the third in the lodge; after a little the first returned and took the place of the Mohawk, who joined his companion.

'Now,' hissed the villain in his nasal patis, and glaring upon his victim, the dodging minsk is caught like a mouse in a trap. What has she to say that Saccapee give her not up to be tortured at the stake? Her life is forfeited by the Maqua law, for there was blood upon the trail of the prisoner when she escaped, and the mane of the slaughtered warrior has not yet been appeased. Saccapee need only say one little word, and it is done. What has she got to say?"

'She is a woman, a miserable woman,' murmured Little Moon faintly; she cannot find strength to talk. A brave man would not cast such hard words at a starved woman. The Awanooch has no heart.'

'Peste!' returned the trader impatiently; how long is this going to last? Saccapee has no heart for a lazy squaw. If she does not get well soon, he will find a medicine to make her, that is all.'

And uttering this threat, which he accompanied with a look significant and savage, the white man seized his and left the camp.

gun

Little Moon sprang from her couch, and peered out after the trader with a flash of anger in her eyes, and when his retreating figure was hidden among the trees, she smiled strangely, took down her snow-shoes from the peg where they hung, drew a pair of mocassins belonging to the Mohawks over her socks, tied some provision in a blanket, and then, with a last look at the place where her mother lay, she sped away like a hunted fawn over the crusted snow.

She went on until the close of day, looking behind often to see if she were pursued; for there was a ringing in her ears, like the yells of Mohawks or wolves, which kept her in continual terror. At length, breathless, light-headed, and ready to faint with weakness, the girl crept, instinctively, within the hollow of a tree that was lying in the snow by the river side, and slept soundly for some hours, for the weather was mild.

She was awakened by a noise. Gracious powers! what new danger beset her? From the entrance of the hollow two fiery eyes were glaring, and there came a growl. She could even feel the breath of the creature, whatever it was, hot upon her cheek; she shrunk back to the further end of the cavity with a cry. The intruder also drew back, but much faster, for he shot from the mouth of the tree like a cannon-ball. Little Moon's teeth chattered. There, drawn up in the moonlight four paces off, with glistening jaws, was a huge bear! It had been on a short excursion to stretch its legs after its long sleep, and in the interim, without knowing it, she had taken possession of its den.

The perplexity seemed mutual. Bruin sat upon the snow, shivering in the night air, and afraid to advance or to turn his back for a moment on the mysterious guest; while Little Moon, though she often laughed afterwards at the droll recollection, felt little inclination then, and would have been glad enough to slip away and give up her berth to the beast. Yet, as she believed she ran the risk of being torn to pieces in the act, she deemed it better to remain where she was.

The bear never budged an inch from the place, and kept watch all

night before the hole in the tree. Towards morning it appeared to doze, and Little Moon once thought it was fast asleep; but no sooner had she made up her mind to profit by it and escape, than the shaggy creature reared itself upon its hind-legs again and opened an eye, and Little Moon slunk back in despair.

At length, after daybreak the bear shook itself, and began to look about and pace to and fro on the river, when, all at once, a shot was fired from the adjoining thicket, and the animal rolled over and remained still. What was the girl's alarm then, when out of the woods, not fifty yards from her retreat, she beheld Saccapee running, with his gun in his hand, towards the bear! But the scene that followed quickly engrossed her thoughts, for the animal was only stunned, and ere the trader reached the place where it lay, with a sharp cry it sprang upon its feet and flew at him.

The Frenchman clubbed his gun and strove to disable his adversary; but the latter, with the science and agility of a pugilist, beat off the blows, right and left, with its paws, and drove him back. Now Saccapee was on snow-shoes, and in his retreat a tuft of grass on the river's bank tripped him up, and before he could recover his balance the bear closed upon him, and clasped its arms around its enemy in a deadly hug.

They rolled over, they twisted round, they threw up the snow,they were sometimes half hidden beneath it, the man and beast. Now the trader was uppermost in the fierce struggle, and now the bear. At last the grip of the latter relaxed, it fell over on its back, stabbed dead by the knife of Saccapee. Little Moon thought her persecutor was also dead, for he remained, likewise, motionless, on the snow. But only in a swoon, however; for after a time he revived, got up, staggering like a drunken man, and returned the way he came, catching at the twigs and trees as he went, and barely able to keep himself from falling.

Now was Little Moon rejoiced. The incident had saved her, for she was sure that Saccapee was following on her tracks when he encountered the bear, and this alone had prevented her from being retaken.

Uttering a brief prayer of gratitude to Kesoulk (the Great Spirit), she crept from the tree, twisted her feet in her snow-shoe straps, and skimmed as lightly as an ortolan down the frozen river; while as she went she thought with pity of the poor bear, for it had not harmed her, and, indirectly, she was the cause of its fate.

Towards noon the rays of the sun, which were now obtaining power, softened the surface of the snow and made the travelling very fatiguing, but as the day advanced it crisped again, and enabled the fugitive to proceed with greater ease; but her feet were dreadfully sore, and her limbs moved mechanically. She began to droop, the suffering girl; she longed for some sheltered place, if it were only to crawl into and die. She was worn out and shivering with cold.

Hark! Was not that a snapping of branches in the woods? Yes, for the sounds increase; something comes crashing towards her. What can it mean?

Whew! With a tremendous leap a cariboo, the swiftest animal of the forest, broke from the copse-wood close by, and flew along the plain of the river like the wind, bound after bound, while fast on its hoof-prints came an Indian, with head uncovered and breast bared, in the ardour of the chase. It was A-moos-took (the Clear Day). Little Moon recognized him, uttered a cry, and fell senseless at his feet. He thought no more of the cariboo.

When recollection returned the girl found herself lying, wrapped in skins, before a warm fire in the camp of the Clear Day, whither he had carried her more than a mile in his

arms.

'Rest in peace, my sister,' said he, as he knelt at her side, with a wooden bowl of warm venison-soup in his hands; 'here is food if she would eat. Little Moon has nothing to trouble her here; A-moos-took is her friend.'

The maiden was sure of that, and she smiled gently at her deliverer, took the proffered nourishment, and slept.

He was a noble fellow, that Indian,

brave, fastidious, and simple-minded. He was one of those natural gentlemen who scorn to do a mean action, and are courteous and honourable by instinct; therefore was he well worthy of his charge.

The snow had long disappeared. The azure sky was visible only through a tracery of leaves. The moss was speckled once more with delicate flowers and the balls of the scarlet pigeon-berry; the whippoor-will proclaimed the close of day. Then Little Moon and her friend sat together in the shade, and their faces

were sad.

'She will,' was the reply. The time has arrived in which Little Moon must speak to her friend.

It is like an old legend told by an ancient to the children what the good Ma-dux-kees has often told me. He was on the path from the Waloostook to the sunrise, he said, when he found a little child asleep among the fern. Now it was a Paleface child alone in the depths of the woods, where none of that people had ever been, and he was perplexed. "It is the papoose of the Penobscot girl, who was coaxed away by the beautiful spirit of the Yeddon; it is so bright and fair.' This he said to himself, but straightway the child awoke and cried, speaking in a strange tongue: it was terribly afraid of Ma-dux-kees. But at last he quieted it with food, and took it with him, and brought it to poor Sau-pa-lose, and she was glad.

'Look you, my friend, it was a little girl, and it throve well. Now they loved it very much, and as they could not find out an owner for it they kept it for their own, and called it Little Moon,' because it was a soft gladness to their hearts. This is what they said.'

Then my sister is not the daughter of the forest-people?' said the Indian, with a look of deep anxiety which he strove not to conceal; 'the blood that runs in her veins is the blood of the Pale-faces,-is it so ?'

'The Master of Life only can tell for a certainty,' she replied. Little

Moon has many broken memories of things that were, but they are tangled threads-she cannot unravel them. When she hears the Anglasheon (Englishman) speak she understands what the words mean, yet where she learnt them she knows no more than you, my friend. But the sounds cause many faces that are not red to appear in the air before her. It is very strange. She knows them, every one! And the voice of her mother goes quivering to her heart, but it is not the voice of Sau-palose. It calls her by a different name. Little Moon is like one who has gone astray: she has often wept over her broken memories.'

The Indian mused. 'Why has the daughter of the stranger told this to A-moos-took, the Micmac?' he demanded, in a low, mournful tone. 'Is she too proud to sit by his side?'

No, no, my brother-friend,' replied the maiden, with earnestness, turning her blue eyes full upon the face of her companion, and giving him her hand; Little Moon is a child of the red people in her heart. She has lived with them and she will die with them, for they are good. She spoke freely, that she might have no hidden things at this time, so that A-moos-took should know to whom he had given his love, that is all.'

The Indian's face brightened like the forest leaves when the sun emerges from the mists of Acadia. He leaned towards the gentle foundling of the Milicete; he kissed her hand. It was the mute expression of his tenderness, the seal of his plighted faith,--mute, but eloquent to her. How long they remained in that blissful reverie they could not afterwards tell, nor does it matter. The hunter wooed and won his beautiful bride in the greenwood shade, and-we repeat it—he was worthy of her.

In another moon they were united by the marriage ritual of the French Church, in accordance with the mode then prevalent among the tribes of Acadia, who had been converted to Christianity by the Jesuit fathers long before the arrival of the English, and wore its symbol in the form of a silver crucifix, which may still be seen on many an Indian breast in that northern land.

The happiness of the young couple was not interrupted by the designs of the perfidious Saccapee, for he never recovered fully from the hug of the wounded bear, and they were told subsequently that he was hung at Quebec for the murder of a brother-trader, whom he had waylaid, shot, and robbed of his stock of peltries.

Three summers after their union A-moos-took and his wife chanced to pass through the country by the head waters of the Miramichi, when, some miles from the grave of Saupa-lose, they picked up a seal-skin capot, which Little Moon, after a close inspection, affirmed to be the same her Milicete father had worn when he set out upon that hunting excursion from which he never returned. A little farther on, also, they came to his blanket, rolled up and fastened still at the ends with the bass-wood tump line. Continuing on they searched narrowly as they went, and their sad forebodings soon proved true; for in a lonely place, by the edge of a little stream, they found a skeleton, bleached and bent in a sitting posture on a dead tree. The snow-shoes were still upon the feet and a bow in the hand.

A-moos-took examined the former, and on the cross piece of each were rudely engraved a beaver and a star.

These are the marks of Ma-duxkees,' said Little Moon; and she turned her face away and wept. It was as they supposed. The poor hunter had thrown off his outer clothes during the heat of the chase, and being benighted on the trail of a moose had frozen to death before he could recover them.

'He looks like an ancient warrior,' said A-moos-took, in a low and solemn voice; they sit sleeping like him, with their shoes on their feet and their bows in their hands. Madux-kees was a Milicete of the old kind, and kept to his father's ways. He is in the hunting-grounds of the just.'

Little Moon was now doubly orphaned, her Indian parents being both dead. Yet she did not repine. Another guardian had been given unto her, and him she followed along the path of life cheerfully, and with a confiding trust that failed not to its close.

minor excitement, take a stroll through the General Post-office some Saturday evening just as the clock is upon the stroke of six.

A

The scene is much more exciting than half the émeutes which have lately taken place on the Continent; considerably cheaper, and much more safe. Stand aside amid the treble bank of spectators on the right-hand, and watch the general attack upon the letter-takers. stream of four or five hundred people, who run as Doyle's pencil in Punch only can make them run, dash desperately towards the open windows of the receivers. Against this torrent a couple of hundred who have posted, dodge and finally disappear. Wave after wave of people advances and retreats, gorging with billets the capacious swallow of the post. Meanwhile a still more active and vigorous attack is going on in the direction where newspapers are received. A sashless windowframe, with tremendous gape, is assaulted with showers of papers, which fly faster than the driven snow. Now and then large sacksfull, direct from the different newsvenders and publishing offices, are bundled in and bolted whole. the moments pass the flight of papers grows thicker, those who cannot struggle to the fore' whiz their missiles of intelligence over the heads of the others, now and then sweeping hats with the force of round shot. Letters struggle with more desperate energy, which is increased to frantic desperation as the clock slowly strikes, one- -two-threefour-five-six; when, with a nigh miss of guillotining a score of hands, with one loud snap all the windows simultaneously descend. The post like a huge monster has received its full supply for the night, and gorged, begins, imperceptibly to the spectators, in quiet to digest.

As

If we enter behind the scenes and traverse what might be considered the vast stomach of the office, we shall perceive an organization almost as perfect as that which exists in the animal economy, and not very dissimi

lar to it. and the huger mountains of newspapers, lie in heaps-the newlyswallowed food. To separate their different atoms, arrange and circulate them, requires a multiplicity of organs, and a variety of agents, almost as numerous as those engaged in the animal stomach-no one interfering with the others, no one but is absolutely necessary to the well-being of the whole.

The huge piles of letters,

So perfect is the drill, so clearly defined the duty of each member of the army of seven or eight bundred men the stranger looks down upon from one of the galleries, that he can only compare its noiseless and unerring movements to the action of some chemical agency.

Towards the vast table upon which the correspondence of two millions of people for two days is heaped and tossed, a certain number performing the functions of the animal chyle proceed to arrange, eliminate, and prepare it for future and more elaborate operations; certain others take away these eliminated atoms, such as the letters for the district delivery, and, by means of a subterranean railway, transport them to their proper office on the opposite side of the building; others again, like busy ants, carry the letters for the general delivery to the tables of the sorters, when in a moment the important operation of classing into roads and towns, sets all hands to work as busily, as silently, and as purposefully as the restless things we peep at through the hive-glass, building up their winter sweets.

In an hour the process is complete; and the thoughts of lawyers, lovers, merchants, bankers, swindlers, masters and servants, the private wishes of the whole town, lie side by side, enjoying inviolable secrecy; and bagged, stringed, and sealed, are ready, after their brief meeting, for their final dispersion over the length and breadth of the land.

All the broad features of this wellcontrived organization, its economy and power, the spectator sees before him; but much as he is struck thereby, it is only when he begins to