between two precipitous, heavily wooded
mountains--when the Indian stopped short in his tracks and uttered a
warning "Ugh!" then bent forward in a listening attitude.

"What is it?" asked Landless in a low voice. "I hear nothing."

"It is a sound," said the other in the same tone. "I do not know what
yet, for it is far off. But it is in front of us."

"Shall we go on?" demanded Landless, and the Indian nodded.

It was late afternoon, and the hills which closed in behind them as the
gorge writhed to left and right hid the sun. Great trees, too, pine and
chestnut, walnut and oak, leaned towards each other from the opposing
banks, and together with the overhanging rocks, mantled with fern, made
a twilight of the pass beneath. Here and there the silver stem of a
birch stood up tall and straight, and looked a ghostly sentinel. "Do you
hear it still?" demanded Landless when they had gone some distance in
dead silence.

"Yes."

"And still in front of us?"

"Yes."

"Ah, what can it be?" cried Patricia, turning her white face upon
Landless.

A cold wind, blowing from open spaces beyond, rushed up the ravine. "I
hear a very faint sound," said Landless, "like the tapping of a
woodpecker in the heart of the forest."

"It is the sound of the axe of the white man," said the Indian. "Some
one is cutting down a tree."

"There can be no ranger or pioneer within many leagues of us!" exclaimed
Landless. "No white man hath ever come so far. It must be an Indian!"

The Susquehannock shook his head. "Why should an Indian cut down a tree?
We kill them and let them stand until they are bare and white like the
bones of a man when the wolves have finished with him, and they fall of
themselves."

"If my father still searches for me," said Patricia in a low voice, "may
it not be his party that we hear? There may be a stream there. They may
make canoes."

"With all my heart I pray that it be so, madam," said Landless. "But we
will soon know. See, Monakatocka has gone on ahead."

She did not answer, and they walked on through the gloom of the defile.
Presently their path became rough and broken, blocked with large stones
and heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above and
draped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and he
helped her across the rough places. He felt her hands tremble in his,
and he thought it was with the ecstasy of the hope which inspired her.

"If it is indeed so," she said once