can be made to fit any hand, has been discovered to have an extra finger in it, which points out a mode by which the federal government can create ports wherever nature has forgotten to perform this beneficent office.  It is a little extraordinary that the fingers of so many of the great “expounders” turn out to be “thumbs,” however, exhibiting clumsiness, rather than that adroit lightness which usually characterizes the dexterity of men who are in the habit of rummaging other people’s pockets, for their own especial purposes.  It must be somewhat up-hill work to persuade any disinterested and clear-headed man, that a political power to “regulate commerce” goes the length of making harbors; the one being in a great measure a moral, while the other is exclusively a physical agency; any more than it goes the length of making ware-houses, and cranes, and carts, and all the other physical implements for carrying on trade.  Now, what renders all this “thumbing” of the Constitution so much the more absurd, is the fact, that the very generous compact interested does furnish a means, by which the poverty of ports on the great lakes may be remedied, without making any more unnecessary rents in the great national glove.  Congress clearly possesses the power to create and maintain a navy, which includes the power to create all sorts of necessary physical appliances; and, among others, places of refuge for that navy, should they be actually needed.  As a vessel of war requires a harbor, and usually a better harbor than a merchant-vessel, it strikes us the “expounders” would do well to give this thought a moment’s attention.  Behind it will be found the most unanswerable argument in favor of the light-houses, too.

But, to return to the narrative:  the Kalamazoo could be entered by canoes, though it offered no very available shelter for a vessel of any size.  There was no other shelter for the savages for several miles to the southward; and, should the wind increase, of which there were strong indications, it was not only possible, but highly probable, that the canoes would return.  According to the account of the females, they had passed only two hours before, and the breeze had been gradually gathering strength ever since.  It was not unlikely, indeed, that the attention paid to the river by the warrior in the last canoe may have had reference to this very state of the weather; and his haste to overtake his companions been connected with a desire to induce them to seek a shelter.  All this presented itself to the beehunter’s mind, at once; and it was discussed between the members of the party, freely, and not without some grave apprehensions.

There was one elevated point—­elevated comparatively, if not in a very positive sense—­whence the eye could command a considerable distance along the lake shore.  Thither Margery now hastened to look after the canoes.  Boden accompanied her; and together they proceeded, side by side, with a new-born but lively and increasing confidence, that was all the greater, in consequence of their possessing a common secret.