Young and thoughtless as I was in those days, I could not fail to
realize the depth of feeling which swayed this stern, experienced man;
and I rode on beside him, questioning no more.




CHAPTER VI

FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH

I think it must be in the blood of all of New England birth to love the
sea. They may never have seen it, nor even heard its wild, stern
music; yet the fascination of great waters is part of their heritage.
The thought of that vast inland ocean, of the magnitude and sublimity
of which I had only the vaguest conception, haunted me all that
afternoon; and I scarcely removed my eyes from those oddly constructed
mounds of drifted sand, striving vainly to gain, through some
depression between them, a fleeting glimpse of the restless waters that
had helped to shape them into such fantastic forms.

As the sun sank, angry red in our faces, presaging a storm, the course
of the little stream we had been following drew in closer toward these
grotesque piles, and the trail we followed became narrower, with the
sluggish current pressing upon one side and that odd bank of gleaming
sand upon the other. In a little open space, where quite a carpet of
coarse yellowish grass had found lodgment, beneath the protecting
shadow of a knot of cottonwoods, we finally made camp, and proceeded to
prepare our evening meal. Determined to strike north through those
guarding sand-dunes, and reach the shore of the lake if possible before