He would not look at the wonderful mound near the swamp,
which he never before had passed without wonder. It was then--as it is
now--such an amazing monument to a vanished race. It is so unaccountably
placed, this mountain of earth in the midst of level lowlands; so
astounding in size and so unmistakably the work of unknown human hands.
Never till that night had David's fervid imagination turned toward it
without his beginning forthwith to wonder over the secrets of the ages
which lie buried beneath. He had hitherto always thought of this mound
in association with the mysterious blazed trail through the forest. But
that was much farther off and more directly south, and no one but the
boy had ever found any connection between the two. He, dreaming, would
sometimes imagine that the same vanished race had marked the path
through the forest by cutting the trees on either side--this marvellous
blazed trail which De Soto is sometimes said to have found when he came,
and again to have made himself, regardless of the fact that history does
not mention his being anywhere near. The romance of the buried treasure
which this mystic path was believed to lead to, perpetually held David
under a spell of enchantment. But he would not allow himself to linger
over these mysteries now. He also resisted the horrible fascination of
the Dismal Slough--that long, frightful black pit--linking the swamp to
the river. And most of all he shrunk from giving a thought or a glance
toward the gloom hanging over Duff's Fort, which was still farther off,
and the strongest, most bloody link in the long and unbroken chain of
crime then stretching clear across southwestern Kentucky.

As these uneasy thoughts thronged, a faint sound borne by the wind
caused him to turn his head with a nervous start, and he saw something
moving in the deeper darkness that surrounded the swamp. He pulled up
the pony, tightening his grip on the rifle, and strained his eyes,
trying to make out what this moving object was. The wavering mists were
very thick, and he thought at first that it might be nothing worse than
a denser gathering of the deadly vapor creeping out of the swamp. The
fog suddenly fell like a heavy curtain, and he could see nothing. And
then lifting again, it gave him a fleeting glimpse of a body of horsemen
riding rapidly in the edge of the forest, as if seeking the shadow of
the trees. He could see only the black outline of the swiftly moving
shapes, but he k