"Do you happen to have a new knife, Mr. Mitford?" one of the other frontiersmen said, turning to the settler. "One wants a new knife and a sharp one."

"I cannot give you a new one, but it was only yesterday that I ground my own knife, and it is both sharp and clean."

"That will do first rate."

And, taking the long knife the settler wore in a sheath hanging from his belt, he proceeded to operate. Not a groan or a sigh proceeded from the wounded man. Accustomed to a hard life as these men were, they were almost as insensible to pain as the Indians themselves. After the splinters of bone had been removed, the wound was washed with warm water and then carefully bandaged. A fire had by this time been lit a short distance in the forest in a position where its light could not be observed by any passing canoe. Here the men bivouacked, taking it by turns to keep watch. For four days they remained here; then one of them started as soon as it was dark, in Mary's canoe, to examine the clearing. He returned in little over an hour. The cabin and outbuildings had all been burnt, and the place was absolutely deserted. It was agreed that there was not the slightest chance of the Indians returning there, and the settler and three of the men at once began to fell trees; while the fourth, who could not assist in active work for some time, went down in the canoe to the village, which he found had been entirely destroyed, but that a body of the State militia had arrived there. From them he learned that another village had been destroyed; but in an attack on a third the Indians had been repulsed with great loss, and had not since been heard of, and it was believed that they had retired to their own villages.

Three months later a log-house had been erected by the water-side, with palisades running down into deep water. It was large and comfortable, and being built of square logs and well loopholed, and with the doors and windows on the water-side only, it could resist a formidable attack. A very strong gate in one of the palisades would admit of the animals being driven in there for shelter. All those which had been taken into the forest had been recovered. The house done, the men set to work to enlarge the clearing, and ten years later it was one of the largest and best-cultivated farms on the lake. Mary, whose exploit had gained for her a wide reputation throughout the district for her courage and coolness, had long before married a young Englishman who had come out with some capital, with the intention of farming. Mary would not hear of leaving her father and mother, and accordingly he entered into partnership with Mr. Mitford, and his energy and capital had no small share in developing the farm. A second log-house was built within some twenty yards of the other, and connected with it by a strong palisade. However, the settlers were never again disturbed by the Indians, and so many new-comers had settled beyond them that it could no longer be called an outlying settlement, especially as a town of considerable size had sprung into existence on the site of the village that had been destroyed.