the thud of a falling nut, the dart of a squirrel, and the sight
of a bushy tail disappearing round a limb--all these things
which indicated that the little gray fellows were working in
the tree-tops, and which would usually have brought Isaac to
a standstill, now did not seem to interest him. At times he
stooped to examine the tender shoots growing at the foot of
a sassafras tree. Then, again, he closely examined marks
he found in the soft banks of the streams.

He went on and on. Two hours of this still-hunting found
him on the bank of a shallow gully through which a brook
went rippling and babbling over the mossy green stones. The
forest was dense here; rugged oaks and tall poplars grew
high over the tops of the first growth of white oaks and
beeches; the wild grapevines which coiled round the trees like
gigantic serpents, spread out in the upper branches and ob-
scured the sun; witch-hopples and laurel bushes grew thickly;
monarchs of the forest, felled by some bygone storm, lay
rotting on the ground; and in places the wind-falls were so
thick and high as to be impenetrable.

Isaac hesitated. He realized that he had plunged far into
the Black Forest. Here it was gloomy; a dreamy quiet pre-
vailed, that deep calm of the wilderness, unbroken save for
the distant note of the hermit-thrush, the strange bird whose
lonely cry, given at long intervals, pierced the stillness. Al-
though Isaac had never seen one of these birds, he was famil-
iar with that cry which was never heard except in the deepest
woods, far from the haunts of man.

A black squirrel ran down a tree and seeing the hunter
scampered away in alarm. Isaac knew the habits of the black
squirrel, that it was a denizen of the wildest woods and fre-
quented places remote from civilization. The song of the
hermit and the sight of the black squirrel caused Isaac to stop
and reflect, with the result that he concluded he had gone
much farther from the fort than he had intended. He turned
to retrace his steps when a faint sound from down the ravine
came to his sharp ears.

There was no instinct to warn him that a hideously painted
face was raised a moment over the clump of laurel bushes to

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