e of them moved, and he
saw the blankets across their chests rising and falling with regularity.
Once he stepped out of the boat and walked down to the entrance of the
channel, whence he looked out upon the surface of the lake. Save for the
islet he saw land nowhere, north, south, east or west. The great lake
stretched away before them apparently as vast as the sea, not gray now,
but running away in little liquid waves of silver in the moonlight.
Henry felt its majesty as he had already felt its might. He had never
before appreciated so keenly the power of nature and the elements.
Chance alone had put in their way this little island that had saved
their lives.

He walked slowly back and resumed his place in the boat. That fine
drying wind was still singing among the trees, making the leaves rustle
softly together and filling Henry's mind with good thoughts. But these
gave way after a while to feelings of suspicion. His was an exceedingly
sensitive temperament. It often seemed to the others--and the wilderness
begets such beliefs--that he received warnings through the air itself.
He could not tell why his nerves were affected in this manner, but he
resolved that he would not relax his vigilance a particle, and when the
time came for him to awaken Tom Ross he decided to continue on guard
with him.

"'Tain't wuth while, Henry," remonstrated Ross. "Nothin's goin' to
happen here on an islan' that ain't got no people but ourselves on it."

"Tom," replied Henry, "I've got a feeling that I'd like to explore this
island."

"Mornin' will be time enough."

"No, I think I'll do it now. I ought to go all over it in an hour. Don't
take me for an Indian when I'm coming back and shoot at me."

"I'd never mistake a Roman senator in his togy for an Injun," replied
Tom Ross grinning.

Henry looked at his clothes, but despite the drying wind they were still
wet.

"I'll have to go as a Roman after all," he said.

He fastened the blanket tightly about his body in the Indian fashion,
secured his belt with pistol, tomahawk and knife around his waist, and
then, rifle in hand, he stepped from the boat into the forest.

"Watch good, Tom," he said. "I may be gone some time."

"You'll find nothin'."

"Maybe so; maybe not."

The woods through which Henry now passed were yet wet, and every time he
touched a bough or a sapling showers of little drops fell upon him. The
patch of forest was dense and the trees large. The trees also grew