as quit that tree; he is bound for up the gorge now," said the
guide.

"Well, I suppose you know, from what I was told," said the sheriff,
discontentedly; "but this is a long ja'nt. Ride up! Ride up!"

Onward they fared through the perfumed woods. The wild asters were
blooming, and sweet and subtile distillations of the autumnal growths
were diffused on the air. The deer are but ill at road-making,--such
tangled coverts, such clifty ledges, such wild leaps; for now the path
threaded the jagged verge of precipices. The valley, a black abyss above
which massive, purplish mountains loomed against a sky of pearly tints,
was visibly narrowing. They all knew that presently it would become a
mere gorge, a vast indentation in the mountain-side. The weird vistas
across the gorge were visible now, craggy steeps, and deep woods filled
with moonlight, with that peculiar untranslated intendment which
differentiates its luminosity in the wilderness from the lunar glamour
of cultivated scenes--something weird, melancholy, eloquent of a meaning
addressed to the soul, but which the senses cannot entertain or words
express.

With a sudden halt, the guide dismounted. The girl still sat on the
saddle-blanket, and the horse bowed his head and pawed. The posse were
gazing dubiously, reluctantly, at a foot-bridge across a deep abyss. It
was only a log, the upper side hewn, with a shaking hand-rail held by
slight standards.

"Have we got to cross this?" asked the officer, still in the saddle and
gazing downward.

"Ef ye foller me," said the guide, indifferently.

But he was ahead of his orders. He visibly braced his nerves for the
effort, and holding his rifle as a balancing-pole, he sped along the
light span with a tread as deft as a fox or a wolf. In a moment he had
gained the farther side.

They scarcely knew how it happened. So unexpected was the event that,
though it occurred before their eyes, they did not seem to see it. They
remembered, rather than perceived, that he stooped suddenly; with one
single great effort of muscular force he dislodged the end of the log,
heaved it up in the air, strongly flung it aside, whence it went
crashing down into the black depths below, its own weight, as it fell,
sufficing to wrench out the other end, carrying with it a mass of earth
and rock from the verge of the precipice.

The horses sprang back snorting and frightened; the officer's, being a
fine animal in prime condition, tried to bolt.