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Chapter XVI.
Desolation.
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EMPORARY huts had been erected for the accommodation of the men employed in the forest.
It was toward these that Augustus Reid directed his steps, after leaving the house of the contractor. He knew the Frenchmen's habits of drinking and carousing to a late hour of the night, and intended, by lurking about their dwellings while they were ignorant of his proximity, to form some estimate of the degree of lawlessness that he might be called upon to restrain, should he accept the position offered to him by the contractor.
