care of himself, for he knew
he was an experienced hunter and woodsman, he resolved to take a
long tramp in the forest. This resolution was strengthened by the
fact that he did not believe what the Colonel and Jonathan had told
him--that it was not improbable some of the Wyandot braves were
lurking in the vicinity, bent on killing or recapturing him. At any
rate he did not fear it.

Once in the shade of the great trees the fever of discontent left
him, and, forgetting all except the happiness of being surrounded by
the silent oaks, he penetrated deeper and deeper into the forest.
The brushing of a branch against a tree, the thud of a falling nut,
the dart of a squirrel, and the sight of a bushy tail disappearing
round a limb--all these things which indicated that the little gray
fellows were working in the tree-tops, and which would usually have
brought Isaac to a standstill, now did not seem to interest him. At
times he stooped to examine the tender shoots growing at the foot of
a sassafras tree. Then, again, he closely examined marks he found in
the soft banks of the streams.

He went on and on. Two hours of this still-hunting found him on the
bank of a shallow gully through which a brook went rippling and
babbling over the mossy green stones. The forest was dense here;
rugged oaks and tall poplars grew high over the tops of the first
growth of white oaks and beeches; the wild grapevines which coiled
round the trees like gigantic serpents, spread out in the upper
branches and obscured the sun; witch-hopples and laurel bushes grew
thickly; monarchs of the forest, felled by some bygone storm, lay
rotting on the ground; and in places the wind-falls were so thick
and high as to be impenetrable.

Isaac hesitated. He realized that he had plunged far into the Black
Forest. Here it was gloomy; a dreamy quiet prevailed, that deep calm
of the wilderness, unbroken save for the distant note of the
hermit-thrush, the strange bird whose lonely cry, given at long
intervals, pierced the stillness. Although Isaac had never seen one
of these birds, he was familiar with that cry which was never heard
except in the deepest woods, far from the haunts of man.

A black squirrel ran down a tree and seeing the hunter scampered
away in alarm. Isaac knew the habits of the black squirrel, that it
was a denizen of the wildest woods and frequented only places remote
from civilization. The song of the hermit and the sight of the black
squirr