which was a mere bridle-path.  Up this they turned, passing through solid bush.  It was a bright, hot day in the clearings, but under the trees it was gloomy and chill, with a moist odor of vegetation which was grateful to the master, and this was his first experience of the bush.  Fallen trees, which lay across the track, their horses jumped, as they also did on meeting wet gullies.  Jabez said the path had been brushed by an Englishman, rumored the son of a lord, who had bought the block of land intending to stay on it.  That was the only improvement he made.  He came late in the Fall and society in Toronto was more agreeable than felling trees.  He bet on horse-races that took place on the ice and spent the evenings at cards.  In the spring his money was gone; had to sell his land to pay his debts, and returned to England.  On reaching the end of the bridle-path the horses were hitched.  Jabez searched among the brush until he found a surveyor’s stake.  Placing a compass on top of it, he cut with his jackknife three rods which he pointed.  He pushed two into the soil on either side of the stake, and went ahead with the third.  Posting the master behind the first, he told him to keep the three in range and to shout to him if he stepped on either side.  Producing from the bag behind his saddle a hatchet, he went forward, cutting down the brush where it blocked his straight course.  When some hundred yards away, he cried to the master to come on, it was all right.  On joining him Jabez pointed to a scar made in the bark of a maple.  ’That is the surveyor’s blaze, made five years ago.  I was in doubts where to find it, for the weather has blackened it.  We are all right now, and will find another farther on.’  So they did, several more, though they were so faint only the trained eye of Jabez could detect them.  As he came to each tree, he used the hatchet to make a fresh blaze, while any branch that obstructed the view between the blazed trees was lopped off.  Suddenly it grew lighter:  they were again in the sunshine and before them was a sheet of water.  It was too small to be called a lake; it was just a pond, set in the heart of the woods.  The master was greatly taken with it and leaning over a log drank heartily, for the water was clear and sweet, though warm.  ‘We may as well rest and take our bite here,’ remarked Jabez, producing from the pouch slung at his back some soldiers’ hard tack, with thin sliced pork between instead of butter.  He explained it was hard to tell the quality of the soil in the woods, and many were deceived, especially as regards stones.  The forest litter covers them, and it is only when the plow is started that the settler finds he has a lot that will give him many a tired back in trying to get rid of the worst of them.  When you find big trees, maple or any other kind of hard wood, it is a sure sign the soil is rich, but if the trees are scrub or of soft wood it is certain to be poor.  Pine is not to be relied on as indicating