his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap; then he
struck out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim before he
reached shallow water.

Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her veil
of cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a scene in
white and black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a beauty so
unimagined and grand that it seemed a little awful. It gave him a
sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to which his
craving for adventure had brought him.

The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark,
towering shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond
diadem above its brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a
sable mantle of forest, enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a
mirror.

"My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes a
bit," muttered Neal aloud. "Only one feels as if he ought to see some
old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,--a Touch-the-Cloud, or
Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the
woods in his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn't visit Maine a
hundred years ago, though, when there'd have been a chance of such a
meeting."

Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and
dragged off his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from his
upper garments, listening intently, and glancing half expectantly into
the pitch-black shadows at the edges of the forest, as if he might hear
the stealthy steps and see the savage form of the superseded red man