fell the gold of the
sycamore. From the hills they looked down upon a red and yellow world, a
gorgeous bourgeoning and blossoming that put the spring to shame, a sea
of splendor with here and there a dark-green isle of cedar or of pine.
Day after day saw the same calm blue sky, the same blue haze, the same
slow drifting of crimson and gold to earth. The winds did not blow, and
the murmur of the forest was hushed. All sound seemed muffled and
remote. The deer passed noiseless down the long aisles, the beaver and
the otter slipped noiseless into the stream, the bear rolled its
shambling bulk away from human neighborhood like a shapeless shadow. At
times vast flocks of wild pigeons darkened the air, but they passed like
a cloud. The singing birds were gone. Only at night did sound awake,
for then the wolves howled, and the infrequent scream of the panther
chilled the blood, and the fires which the wanderers must needs build
roared and crackled through the darkness. In the daytime beauty, vast
and melancholy; in the night, shadows and mysteries, the voice of wild
beasts and the stillness of the stars; at all times an enemy, they knew
not how far away or how near at hand, behind them.

Through this world which seemed more a phantasm than a reality, Landless
and Patricia fared, and were happy. All passion, all fear, all mistrust
and anger slept in that enchanted calm. They never spoke of the past,
they had well-nigh ceased to think of it. When they knelt upon the turf
beside some crystal brook, and drank of the water which seemed red wine
or molten gold according to the nature of the trees above it, it might
have been the water of Lethe.

In the illimitable forest, too, in the monotony of sunshine and shade,
of glade and dell, of crystal streams and tiny valleys, each the
counterpart of the other, in dense woods and grassy savannahs; in the
yesterday so like to-day, and the to-day so like to-morrow, there was no
hint of the future. It was enchanted ground, where to-morrow must always
be like to-day. They kept their faces to the east, and they walked each
day as many leagues as her strength would permit, and Landless,
imitating as best he could the dead Susquehannock, took all precautions
to cover their trail; but that done all was done, and they put care
behind them. Landless, walking in a dream, knew that it was a dream, and
said to himself, "I must awaken, but not yet. I will dream and be happy
yet a little while." But Pa