had not been mentioned in the elaborate directions which
I had received with regard to the road to follow. For a
moment, therefore, I thought I must be on the wrong trail.
But just then the dim view, which had been obstructed by
copses and thickets, cleared ahead in the last glimmer
of the moon, and I made out the back cliff of forest
darkly looming in the north--that forest I knew. Behind
a narrow ribbon of bush the ground sloped down to the
bed of the creek--a creek that filled in spring and became
a torrent, but now was sluggish and slow where it ran at
all. In places it consisted of nothing but a line of
muddy pools strung along the bottom of its bed. In summer
these were a favourite haunting place for mosquito-and-
fly-plagued cows. There the great beasts would lie down
in the mud and placidly cool their punctured skins. A
few miles southwest the creek petered out entirely in a
bed of shaly gravel bordering on the Big Marsh which I
had skirted in my drive and a corner of which I was
crossing just now.

The road was better here and spoke of more traffic. It
was used to haul cordwood in late winter and early spring
to a town some ten or fifteen miles to the southwest. So
I felt sure again I was not lost but would presently
emerge on familiar territory. The horse seemed to know it,
too, for he raised his head and went at a better gait.

A few minutes passed. There was hardly a sound from my
vehicle. The buggy was rubber-tired, and the horse selected
a smooth ribbon of grass to run on. But from the black