strength and his acquired woodcraft, he had needlessly challenged the Wilderness in its most implacable mood, and the challenge had been vindictively accepted. Just at that time when the northern winter is often at its deadliest, before yielding to the approach of spring, he had set out from Gilson's Camp, on his snow-shoes, to cut across the Height of Land to Burnt Brook Settlement. This, at best, was a ten hours' tramp; but he was an expert on the snow-shoes, and well seasoned to cold and fatigue. Moreover, having hunted all through that region the previous autumn, he flattered himself that he knew the way as well as any native.
McLaggan journeyed light. He carried with him his sporting rifle, a .303, which suited him for any game from a partridge to a bull-moose. At his belt was slung a little tin kettle, that he might melt snow and refresh himself with hot tea on his journey. And in the haversack on his back, along with a change of raiment, went a loaf of camp bread and a generous "chunk" of cold boiled pork. The rest of his belongings at the camp he left behind him, to be carried by the first team which should be sent in to the settlement.
McLaggan set out in high spirits eager for a taste of civilization after months of the Wilderness winter. He thought of the homely houses of the little, straggling backwoods settlement, of the
