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This did not suit our hero’s sociable temperament, and he began to despond very much. Still his sanguine spirit led him to persevere, and there is no saying how long he might have continued to spend his days and his energies in felling trees and sowing among the stumps and hoping for better days, had not his views been changed and his thoughts turned into another channel by a letter.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE LETTER, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

One fine spring morning Jack was sitting, smoking his pipe after breakfast, at the door of his log cabin, looking pensively out upon the tree-stump-encumbered field which constituted his farm. He had facetiously named his residence the Mountain House, in consequence of there being neither mountain nor hill larger than an inverted wash-hand basin, within ten miles of him! He was wont to defend the misnomer on the ground that it served to keep him in remembrance of the fact that hills really existed in other parts of the world.

Jack was in a desponding mood. His pipe would not “draw” that morning; and his mind had been more active than usual for a few days past, revolving the past, the present, and the future. In short, Jack was cross. There could be no doubt whatever about it; for he suddenly, and without warning, dashed his pipe to pieces against a log, went into the house for another, which he calmly filled, as he resumed his former seat, lit, and continued to smoke for some time in sulky silence. We record this fact because it was quite contrary to Jack’s amiable and patient character, and showed that some deep emotions were stirring within him.

The second pipe “drew” well. Probably it was this that induced him to give utterance to the expression–

“I wonder how long this sort of thing will last?”

“Just as long as you’ve a mind to let it, and no longer,” answered a man clad in the garb of a trapper, whose mocassin foot had given no indication of his approach until he was within a couple of paces of the door.

“Is that you, Joe?” said Jack, looking up, and pointing to a log which served as a seat on the other side of the doorway.

“It’s all that’s of me,” replied Joe.

“Sit down and fill your pipe out of my pouch, Joe. It’s good ‘baccy, you’ll find. Any news? I suppose not. There never is; and if there was, what would be the odds to me?”

“In the blues?” remarked the hunter, regarding Jack with a peculiar smile through his first puff of smoke.

“Rather!” said Jack.

“Grog?” inquired Joe.

“Haven’t tasted a drop for months,” replied Jack.

“All square here?” inquired the hunter, tapping his stomach.

“Could digest gun-flints and screw nails!”

The two smoked in silence for some time; then Joe drew forth a soiled letter, which he handed to his companion, saying–

“It’s bin lying at the post-office for some weeks, and as the postmaster know’d I was comin’ here he asked me to take it. I’ve a notion it may be an offer to buy your clearin’, for I’ve heerd two or three fellows speakin’ about it. Now, as I want to buy it myself, if yer disposed to sell it, I hereby make you the first offer.”

Jack Robinson continued to smoke in silence, gazing abstractedly at the letter. Since his mother had died, a year before the date of which we write, he had not received a line from any one, insomuch that he had given up calling at the post-office on his occasional visits to the nearest settlement. This letter, therefore, took him by surprise, all the more that it was addressed in the handwriting of his former partner, Murray.

Breaking the seal, he read as follows:

“Fort Kamenistaquoia, April the somethingth:–

“Dear Jack,–You’ll be surprised to see my fist, but not more surprised than I was to hear from an old hunter just arrived, that you had taken to farming. It’s not your forte, Jack, my boy. Be advised. Sell off the farm for what it will fetch, and come and join me. My antecedents are not in my favour, I grant; but facts are stubborn things, and it is a fact that I am making dollars here like stones. I’m a fur-trader, my boy. Have joined a small company, and up to this time have made a good thing of it. You know something of the fur trade, if I mistake not. Do come and join us; we want such a man as you at a new post we have established on the coast of Labrador. Shooting, fishing, hunting, ad libitum. Eating, drinking, sleeping, ad infinitum. What would you more? Come, like a good fellow, and be happy!