down, trembling, at my feet.  ’What does this mean?’ I cried, and I cocked my rifle and sprang upon the log.  The sound came nearer upon the wind.  It was like the deep baying of a pack of hounds in full cry.  Presently a noble deer rushed past me, and fast upon his trail—­I see them now, like so many black devils—­swept by a pack of ten or fifteen large, fierce wolves, with fiery eyes and bristling hair, and paws that seemed hardly to touch the ground in their eager haste.  I thought not of danger, for, with their prey in view, I was safe; but I felt every nerve within me tremble for the fate of the poor deer.  The wolves gained upon him at every bound.  A close thicket intercepted his path, and, rendered desperate, he turned at bay.  His nostrils were dilated, and his eyes seemed to send forth long streams of light.  It was wonderful to witness the courage of the beast.  How bravely he repelled the attacks of his deadly enemies, how gallantly he tossed them to the right and left, and spurned them from beneath his hoofs; yet all his struggles were useless, and he was quickly overcome and torn to pieces by his ravenous foes.  At that moment he seemed more unfortunate than even myself, for I could not see in what manner he had deserved his fate.  All his speed and energy, his courage and fortitude, had been exerted in vain.  I had tried to destroy myself; but he, with every effort vigorously made for self-preservation, was doomed to meet the fate he dreaded!  Is God just to his creatures?”

With this sentence on his lips, he started abruptly from his seat, and left the house.

One day he found me painting some wild flowers, and was greatly interested in watching the progress I made in the group.  Late in the afternoon of the following day he brought me a large bunch of splendid spring flowers.

“Draw these,” said he; “I have been all the way to the —–­ lake plains to find them for you.”

Little Katie, grasping them one by one, with infantile joy, kissed every lovely blossom.

“These are God’s pictures,” said the hunter, “and the child, who is all nature, understands them in a minute.  Is it not strange that these beautiful things are hid away in the wilderness, where no eyes but the birds of the air, and the wild beasts of the wood, and the insects that live upon them, ever see them?  Does God provide, for the pleasure of such creatures, these flowers?  Is His benevolence gratified by the admiration of animals whom we have been taught to consider as having neither thought nor reflection?  When I am alone in the forest, these thoughts puzzle me.”

Knowing that to argue with Brian was only to call into action the slumbering fires of his fatal malady, I turned the conversation by asking him why he called his favourite dog Chance?

“I found him,” he said, “forty miles back in the bush.  He was a mere skeleton.  At first I took him for a wolf, but the shape of his head undeceived me.  I opened my wallet, and called him to me.  He came slowly, stopping and wagging his tail at every step, and looking me wistfully in the face.  I offered him a bit of dried venison, and he soon became friendly, and followed me home, and has never left me since.  I called him Chance, after the manner I happened with him; and I would not part with him for twenty dollars.”