tin-steepled chapel and the church house;
there remained only the Indian camp between her and the woods
trail. At once the dogs began to bark and howl, the fierce
_giddes_ lifting their pointed noses to the sky. The girl hurried
on, twinging far to the right through the grass. To her relief the
camp did not respond to the summons. An old crone or so appeared
in the flap of a teepee, eyes dazzled, to throw uselessly a billet
of wood or a volley of Cree abuse at the animals nearest. In a
moment Virginia entered the trail.

Here was no light at all. She had to proceed warily, feeling with
her moccasins for the beaten pathway, to which she returned with
infinite caution whenever she trod on grass or leaves. Though her
sight was dulled, her hearing was not. A thousand scurrying noises
swirled about her; a multitude of squeaks, whistles, snorts, and
whines attested that she disturbed the forest creatures at their
varied businesses; and underneath spoke an apparent dozen of
terrifying voices which were in reality only the winds and the
trees. Virginia knew that these things were not dangerous--that
day light would show them to be only deer-mice, hares, weasels,
bats, and owls--nevertheless, they had their effect. For about her
was cloying velvet blackness--not the closed-in blackness of a
room, where one feels the embrace of the four walls, but the
blackness of infinite space through which sweep mysterious currents
of air. After a long time she turned sharp to the left. After a
long time more she perceived a faint, opalescent glimmer in the
distance ahead. This she knew to be the river.

She felt her way onward, still cautiously, then she choked back a
scream and dropped her burden with a clatter to the ground. A dark
figure seemed to have risen mysteriously at her side.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," said Ned Trent, in guarded tones.
"I heard you coming. I thought you could hear me."

He picked up the fallen articles, running his hands over them
rapidly.

"Good," he whispered. "I got some moccasins to-day--traded a few
things I had in my pockets for them. I'm fixed."

"Have you a canoe?" she asked.

"Yes--here on the beach."

He preceded her down the few remaining yards of the trail. She
followed, already desolated at the thought of parting, for the
wilderness was very big. The bulk of the man partly blotted out
the lucent spot where the river was--now his arm, now his head, now
the breadth