CHAPTER II.
"Fear not, ye are of more value than many sparrows." The sun had risen in all the splendour of a Canadian summer morning, when the sleepers arose from their leafy beds.

In spite of the novelty of their situation, they had slept as soundly and tranquilly as if they had been under the protecting care of their beloved parents, on their little paliasses of corn straw; but they had been cared for by Him who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, and they waked full of youthful hope, and in fulness of faith in His mercy into whose hands they had commended their souls and bodies before they retired to rest.
While the children slept in peace and safety, what terrors had filled the minds of their distracted parents! what a night of anguish and sorrow had they passed! When night had closed in without bringing back the absent children, the two fathers, lighting torches of fat pine, went forth in search of the wanderers.

How often did they raise their voices in hopes their loud halloos might reach the hearing of the lost ones! How often did they check their hurried steps to listen for some replying call! But the sighing breeze in the pine tops, or sudden rustling of the leaves caused by the flight of the birds, startled by the unusual glare of the torches, and the echoes of their own voices, were the only sounds that met their anxious ears.

At daybreak they returned, sad and dispirited, to their homes, to snatch a morsel of food, endeavour to cheer the drooping hearts of the weeping mothers, and hurry off, taking different directions.

But, unfortunately, they had little clue to the route which Hector and Louis had taken, there being many cattle paths through the woods.