is master. "There may be Indians abroad."

The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer,
having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, more
wakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the splendor
of the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor the looming
mountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the grass, and himself.
He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy places; then fell
to thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility that after all he might
never find again the cabin in the valley. While he laughed at this
supposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood to think the loss of
the trail of the expedition no great matter. The woods were full of game,
the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to keep their faces to the
eastward, and a fortnight at most would bring them to the settlements. But
the valleys folded among the hills were many; what if the one he sought
should still elude him? What if the cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystal
stream, had sunk from sight, like the city in one of Monsieur Gralland's
fantastic tales? Perhaps they had done so,--the spot had all the air of a
bit of fairyland,--and the woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves.
Well, perchance for her it would be better so. And yet it would be
pleasant if she should climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with her
shy dark eyes and floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the wind
would lift it; her face was fair, and another than the wind should kiss
it. The night would not then be so slow in going.

He turned upon his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the woods
upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver,
immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams.
Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows,
stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was no
wind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn the light, so
high and still and calm the universe around him, that awe fell upon his
soul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at the riddle of the
world; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it quite, to wonder, to
think of death. The easy consciousness that for him death was scores of
years away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was all
drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, ma