striving to drive from me the sombre thoughts assailing me, trying to reassure myself with the knowledge that she was safe at Otsego with her new friends, and that very shortly now she would be still safer in Albany, and under the shrewd and kindly eye of Mr. Hake.

The sun had set; the pallid daylight lingering along the forest edges by the river grew sickly and died. And after a little the Mohican halted on a hillock, and we cart our packs from us and peered around.

The forms of rocks took dim shape all about us, huge slabs and benches of stone, from which great bushes of laurel and rhododendron spread, forming beyond us an entangled and impenetrable jungle.

And under these we crawled and lay, listening for snakes. But there seemed to be none there,