at this is my time."

Holderness was quiet. He still felt the spell of the wilderness that
Henry had cast over him, but, after a moment or two, it began to pass.
His nature was wholly different. In his veins flowed the blood of
generations that had lived in the soft and protected English lands, and
the vast forests and the silence, brave man though he was, inspired him
with awe.

Henry, meanwhile, still watched the passing canoes. The last of them was
now far down the river, and he and Holderness looked at it, while it
became a dot on the water, and then, like the others, sank from sight.
Then he and his English friend walked out from the palisade upon the
unfinished pier, and watched the twilight come over the great forest.
This setting of the sun and the slow red light falling over the branches
of the trees always appealed to Henry, but it impressed Holderness, not
yet used to it, with the sense of mystery and awe.

"I think," said he, "that it is the silence which affects me most. When
I stand here and look upon that unbroken forest I seem face to face with
a primeval world into which man has not yet come. One in fancy almost
could see the mammoth or great sabre tooth tiger drinking at the far
edge of the river."

"You can see a deer drinking," said Henry, pointing with a long
forefinger. Holderness was less keen-eyed, but he was able at length to
make out the figure of the animal. The two watched, but soon the
deepening twilight hid the graceful form, and then darkness fell over
the stream which now flowed in a slow gray current. Behind them they
heard the usual noises in the fort, but nothing came from the great
forest in front of them.

"Still the same silence," said Holderness. "It grows more uncanny."

The last words had scarcely left his lips when out of that forest came a
low and long wailing cry, inexpressibly sad, and yet with a decisive
touch of ferocity. It sounded as if the first life, lonely and fierce,
had just entered this primitive world. Holderness shivered, without
knowing just why.

"It is the cry of a wolf," said Henry, "perhaps that of some outcast
from the pack. He is probably both hungry and lonesome, and he is
telling the world about it. Hark to him again!"

Henry was leaning forward, listening, and young Holderness did not
notice his intense eagerness. The cry was repeated, and the wolf gave it
inflections like a scale in music.

"It is almost musical," said Holderness. "That wolf