When at last I could escape without discredit, and get across the river
again, it was with the consoling thought that the next Sunday would be Mr.
Stewart's Sunday.

This meant a good long walk with my patron. Sometimes we would go down to
Mount Johnson, if Sir William was at home, or to Mr. Butler's, or some
other English-speaking house, where I would hear much profitable
conversation, and then be encouraged to talk about it during our leisurely
homeward stroll. But more often, if the day were fine, we would leave
roads and civilization behind us, and climb the gradual elevation to the
north of the house, through the woodland to an old Indian trail which led
to our favorite haunt--a wonderful ravine.

The place has still a local fame, and picnic parties go there to play at
forestry, but it gives scarcely a suggestion now of its ancient wildness.
As my boyish eyes saw it, it was nothing short of awe-inspiring. The
creek, then a powerful stream, had cut a deep gorge in its exultant leap
over the limestone barrier. On the cliffs above, giant hemlocks seemed to
brush the very sky with their black, tufted boughs. Away below, on the
shadowed bottomland, which could be reached only by feet trained to
difficult descents, strange plants grew rank in the moisture of the
waterfall, and misshapen rocks wrapped their nakedness in heavy folds of
unknown mosses and nameless fern-growths. Above all was the ceaseless
shout of the tumbling waters, which had in my ears ever a barbaric message
from the Spirit of the Wilderness.

The older Mohawks told Mr. Stewart that in their childhood this weird spot
was held to be sacred to the Great Wolf, the totem of their tribe. Here,
for more generations than any could count, their wise men had gathered
about the mystic birch flame, in grave council of war. Here the tribe had