“The dirty tablecloth hung up to air, as my name is Charles Cap!” he muttered; “and we hugging this d——­d shore as if it were our wife and children met on the return from an India v’y’ge!  Hark’e, Jasper, are you in search of a cargo of frogs, that you keep so near in to this New France?”

“I hug the land, sir, in the hope of passing the enemy’s ship without being seen, for I think she must be somewhere down here to leeward.”

“Ay, ay, this sounds well, and I hope it may turn out as you say.  I trust there is no under-tow here?”

“We are on a weather shore, now,” said Jasper, smiling; “and I think you will admit, Master Cap, that a strong under-tow makes an easy cable:  we owe all our lives to the under-tow of this very lake.”

“French flummery!” growled Cap, though he did not care to be heard by Jasper.  “Give me a fair, honest, English-Yankee-American tow, above board, and above water too, if I must have a tow at all, and none of your sneaking drift that is below the surface, where one can neither see nor feel.  I daresay, if the truth could be come at, that this late escape of ours was all a contrived affair.”

“We have now a good opportunity, at least, to reconnoitre the enemy’s post at Niagara, brother, for such I take this fort to be,” put in the Sergeant.  “Let us be all eyes in passing, and remember that we are almost in face of the enemy.”

This advice of the Sergeant needed nothing to enforce it; for the interest and novelty of passing a spot occupied by human beings were of themselves sufficient to attract deep attention in that scene of a vast but deserted nature.  The wind was now fresh enough to urge the Scud through the water with considerable velocity, and Jasper eased her helm as she opened the river, and luffed nearly into the mouth of that noble strait, or river, as it is termed.  A dull, distant, heavy roar came down through the opening in the banks, swelling on the currents of the air, like the deeper notes of some immense organ, and occasionally seeming to cause the earth itself to tremble.

“That sounds like surf on some long unbroken coast!” exclaimed Cap, as a swell, deeper than common, came to his ears.

“Ay, that is such surf as we have in this quarter of the world,” Pathfinder answered.  “There is no under-tow there, Master Cap; but all the water that strikes the rocks stays there, so far as going back again is consarned.  That is old Niagara that you hear, or this noble stream tumbling down a mountain.”

“No one will have the impudence to pretend that this fine broad river falls over yonder hills?”

“It does, Master Cap, it does; and all for the want of stairs, or a road to come down by.  This is natur’, as we have it up hereaway, though I daresay you beat us down on the ocean.  Ah’s me, Mabel! a pleasant hour it would be if we could walk on the shore some ten or fifteen miles up this stream, and gaze on all that God has done there.”