hs, moved by the sighing wind, smote one another with
infinite sadness.

There was no sound other than this moaning of the wind through the
forest and the muffled beating of the pony's feet on the leaf-covered
path. Once a great owl flew across the dark way with a deadened beating
of his heavy wings. Again wolves howled, but so far in the distance that
the sound came as the faintest echo. A stronger gust of the fitful wind
filled the forest with the sulphurous vapors arising from the
evaporating furnaces. A moment more, and the vivid glare of the fires
flared luridly through the wild tangle of the undergrowth. Against this
red glare many black shadows--the dark forms of the firemen--could now
be indistinctly seen moving like evil spirits around the smoking,
flaming pits.

It was a wild, strange sight, wild and strange enough to fire a cooler
fancy than David's. He forgot his errand, forgot the money, forgot where
he was--everything but the romance of the scene which had taken him
captive. Every nerve in his tense young body was strung like the cord of
a harp; his young heart was beating as if a heavy hammer swung in his
breast. And then, without so much as the warning rustle of a leaf or a
sound more alarming than the sigh of the wind, two blurred black shapes
burst out of the forest upon him.

V

ON THE WILDERNESS ROAD

The pony fell back almost to his haunches before the boy could draw the
reins. The two horses recoiled with equal suddenness and violence. An
unexpected encounter with the unknown in the darkness filled even the
dumb brutes with alarm, and brute and human alike had reason to be
alarmed; for this time and this place--stamped in blood on
history--marked the very height and centre of the reign of terror on the
Wilderness Road.

The boy strained his terrified gaze through the dark, but he could see
nothing except those vague, black forms of two horsemen, looming large
and threatening against the lurid glow of the furnace fires which
faintly lit the forest. The men and their horses looked like monstrous
creatures, half human and half beast, both as silent and motionless as
himself. He felt that they also were listening and watching in tense
waiting as he waited and watched, hearing only the frightened panting of
the horses and the faint rustle of the sable leaves overhead. And so all
held for an instant, which seemed endless, till a sudden gust of wind
swung the boughs and sent the glare of t