Through the opening at the gorge of this ravine they enjoyed a peep at the distant waters of the lake which terminated the vista, while they were quite removed from its unwholesome vapours.
The temperature of the air for some days had been hot and sultry, scarcely modified by the cool delicious breeze that usually sets in about nine o'clock, and blows most refreshingly till four or five in the afternoon.

Hector and Louis had gone down to fish for supper, while Catharine busied herself in collecting leaves and dried deer-grass, moss and fern, of which there was abundance near the spring.

The boys had promised to cut some fresh cedar boughs near the lake shore, and bring them up to form a foundation for their bed, and also to strew Indian-fashion over the floor of the hut by way of a carpet.

This sort of carpeting reminds one of, the times when the palaces of our English kings were strewed with rushes, and brings to mind the old song:-- "Oh! the golden days of good Queen Bess, When the floors were strew'd with rushes, And the doors went on the latch----" Despise not then, you, my refined young readers, the rude expedients adopted by these simple children of the forest, who knew nothing of the luxuries that were to be met with in the houses of the great and the rich.

The fragrant carpet of cedar or hemlock-spruce sprigs strewn lightly over the earthen floor, was to them a luxury as great as if it had been taken from the looms of Persia or Turkey, so happy and contented were they in their ignorance.