ut
down the center by burning strokes of lightning. The wind whipped the
surface of the river into white foamy waves. But Harry heard and beheld
it all with a certain pleasure. It was good to see the storm seek them,
and yet not find them--behind their canvas cover. He remained close in
his place and stared out at the foaming surface of the water. Back went
his thoughts again to the far-off troubled time, when the hunter in the
vast wilderness depended for his life on the quickness of eye and ear.
He had read so much of Boone and Kenton and Harrod, and his own great
ancestor, and the impression was so vivid, that the vision was
translated into fact.

"I'm feelin' your feelin's too," said Jarvis, who, glancing at him,
had read his mind with almost uncanny intuition. "Times like these,
the Injuns an' the wild animals all come back, an' I've felt 'em still
stronger way up in the mountains, where nothin' of the old days is gone
'cept the Injuns. Ike, I guess it's cold grub for us tonight. We can't
cook anythin' in all this rain. Reach into that locker an' bring out
the meat an' bread. This ain't so bad, after all. We're snug an' dry,
an' we've got plenty to eat, so let the storm howl:

"They bore him away when the day had fled,
And the storm was rolling high,
And they laid him down in his lonely bed,
By the light of an angry sky,

"The lightning flashed and the wild sea lashed
The shore with its foaming wave,
And the thunder passed on the rushing blast
As it howled o'er the rover's grave."

The full tenor rose and swelled above the sweep of wind and rain,
and the man's soul was in the words he sang. A great voice with the
accompaniment of storm, the water before them, the lightning blazing at
intervals, and the thunder rolling in a sublime refrain, moved Harry to
his inmost soul. The song ceased, but its echo was long in dying on the
river.

"Did you pick up that, too, from a wandering fiddler?" asked Harry.

"No, I don't know where I got it. I s'pose I found scraps here an' thar,
but I like to sing it when the night is behavin' jest as it's doin' now.
I ain't ever seen the sea, Harry, but it must be a mighty sight,
particklarly when the wind's makin' the high waves run."

"Very likely you'd be seasick if you were on it then. I like it best
when the waves are not running."

The thunder and lightning ceased after a while, but the rain came with
a steady