Perhaps orders may come in a couple of weeks,
perhaps in a couple of months, but they will certainly come at last.
Anyhow, it is of no use thinking about it, so we had better forget
it, and make the best of things as we find them."
"Ah!" exclaimed Harry, "your advice is, that we should by all means
be happy, and if we can't be happy, be as happy as we can. Is that
it?"
"Just so. That's it exactly."
"Ho! But then you see, Hammy, you're a philosopher and I'm not, and
that makes all the difference. I'm not given to anticipating evil,
but I cannot help dreading that they will send me to some lonely,
swampy, out-of-the-way hole, where there will be no society, no
shooting, no riding, no work even to speak of--nothing, in fact, but
the miserable satisfaction of being styled 'bourgeois' by five or six
men, wretched outcasts like myself,"
"Come, Harry," cried Hamilton; "you are taking the very worst view of
it. There certainly are plenty of such outposts in the country, but
you know very well that young fellows like you are seldom sent to
such places."
"I don't know that," interrupted Harry. "There's young M'Andrew: he
was sent to an outpost up the Mackenzie his second year in the
service, where he was all but starved, and had to live for about two
weeks on boiled parchment. Then there's poor Forrester: he was
shipped off to a place--the name of which I never could remember--
somewhere between the head-waters of the Athabasca Lake and the North
Pole.
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