The Hidden Children by Robert William Chambers Chapter 5 Page 9

“ — to Catharines-town or paradise — to hell or heaven. And what a tale to tell our children — we who survive!”

An odd expression came into his handsome face, and he said in a low and dreamy voice:

“I think that almost every man will live to tell that story — yet, I can never hear myself telling the tale in years to come.”

On paths and new-made highways we began to encounter people and cattle — now a long line of oxen laden with military stores or with canoes and flatboats, and conducted by batt-men in smock and frock, now a sweating company of military surveyors from headquarters, burdened with compass, chain, and Jacob-staff, already running their lines into the wilderness. Here trudged the