The rain ceasing shortly after, they continued their walk to the old encampment, which they visited for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were any other signs of visitors. Everything was just as they had left it, except that it had assumed a desolate and weather-beaten aspect. Their flag was flying, and the paper, though wet, adhering to the staff. At sea the weather looked foul, and the surf was rolling angrily upon the shore. Resting themselves upon the root of the noble old oak, and visiting the spring for a drink of cool water, they once more turned their faces to the prairie.

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Whoever will travel extensively through our pine barrens, will see tracts, varying in extent from a quarter of an acre to many hundreds of acres, destroyed by the attacks of a worm. The path from the old encampment led through a deadening," as it is called, of this sort; in which the trees, having been attacked some years before, were many of them prostrate, and others standing only by sufferance of the winds. By the time our travellers reached the middle of this dangerous tract, a sudden squall came up from sea, and roared through the forest at a terrible rate. They heard it from afar, and saw the distant limbs bending, breaking, and interlocking, while all around them was a wilderness of slender, brittle trunks, from which they had not time to escape. Their situation was appalling. Death seemed almost

inevitable. But just as the crash commence among the pines, a brilliant idea occurred to the mind of Robert.

"Here, Harold!" said he; "Run! run! run!" Suiting the action to the word, he threw himself flat beside a large sound log that lay across the course of the wind, and crouched closely beside its curvature; almost too closely, as he afterwards discovered. Hardly had Harold time to follow his example, before an enormous tree cracked, crashed, and came with a horrible roar, directly over the place where they lay. The log by the side of which they had taken refuge, was buried several inches in the ground; and when Robert tried to move, he found that his coat had been caught by a projecting knot, and partly buried. The trec which fell was broken into four parts; two of them resting with their fractured ends butting each other on the log, while their other ends rested at ten or twelve feet distance upon the earth. For five minutes the winds roared, and the trees crashed around them; and then the squall subsided as quickly as it had arisen.

"That was awful," said Robert, rising and looking at the enormous tree, from whose crushing fall they had been so happily protected.

"It was, indeed," Harold responded; "and we owe our lives, under God, to that happy thought of yours. Where did you obtain it ?"

Robert pointed to the other end of the lug, and said, "there." A small tree had fallen across it, and was broken, as the larger one had been. "I saw that," said he, "just as the wind began to crash among these pines, and thought that if we laid ourselves where we did, we should be safe from everything, except straggling limbs, or flying splinters."

"Really," said Harold, "at this rate you are likely to beat me in my own province. I wonder I never thought of this plan before."

"I had an adventure somewhat like this last year, only not a quarter so bad," said Robert. I was fishing with Frank, on a small stream, when a whirlwind came roaring along, with such force as to break off limbs from several of the trees. Afraid that we, and particularly Frank, who was light, might be taken up and carried away, or else dashed against a tree and seriously hurt, I made him grasp a sapling, by putting around it both arms and legs, while I threw my own arms around him and it together, to hold all tight. I was badly frightened at the noise and near approach of the whirlwind, but for the life of me could. not help laughing at an act of Frank's. We had taken only a few small catfish, (which he called from their size, kitten-fish,) and two of these being the first he had ever caught, he of course thought much of them. When the wind came nearest,

and I called to him, 'hold fast, Frank!' I saw him lean his head to one side, looking first at the fly ing branches, then at the string of fish, which the wind had slightly moved, and deliberately letting

go his hold of the tree, he grasped his prize, and held to that with an air and manner, which said as plainly as an act could say, 'If you get them, you must take me too.'"

CHAPTER XXXVII.

LAUNCHING THE BOATS-MORE WORK, AND YET MORE-ECLIPSE OF FEB. 12TH, 1831-HEALING BY FIRST INTENTION "—FRANK'S BIRTHDAY— PREPARING FOR A VOYAGE-RAIN, RAIN.

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THE boats came on swimmingly. By the end of the second week of their systematic labours they had not only been sufficiently excavated, but the young shipwrights had trimmed down much of the exterior. They were two and a half feet wide, by twenty inches deep, and eighteen feet long. At this stage Robert supposed the work to be nearly done, but Sam shook his head, and said, "Not half." The most laborious part of the work was over, but so much more remained, in the way of paring, smoothing, trimming, and bringing into proper shape, that it was full a fortnight before they were considered fit for the water.

They were ready for launching on the same day; and though Robert made his announcement of the fact some hours in the advance of Harold, it was agreed, that as Sam had been with him half a day more, the race should be considered as