leaving the
wilderness and getting back to civilization.

"All right. I go with you. Show me the town, then I'll come back."

"Well. As you please. Only I don't propose to pay you any longer than
will take us, now by the shortest road, to Donovan's."

"Time enough to borrow that trouble when you see it."

But Pierre suggested that, as Adrian wished to learn everything
possible about the woods, he should now take the guidance of affairs,
and that whenever things went wrong he, Pierre, could point the way.
He did this because, of late, he fancied that his young employer
had taken a "too top-lofty" tone in addressing him; and, in truth,
Adrian's day-dreams of coming fame and his own genius were making him
feel vastly superior to the rough woodsman.

They had paddled over dead water to a point where two streams touched
it, and the question rose--which way?

"That!" said Adrian, with decision, pointing to the broader and more
southern of the two.

"Good enough."

For a moment the leader fancied there was a gleam of malice in
his hireling's eye, but he considered it beneath his notice and
calmly turned the canoe into the thoroughfare he had chosen. It was
wonderfully smooth and delightful paddling. In all their trip they had
not found so level a stream, and it was nothing but enjoyment of the
scenery that Adrian felt, until it seemed to him that they had been
moving a long time without arriving anywhere. "Haven't we?" he asked.

"Oh! we'll get there soon, now."

Presently things began to look familiar. There was one curiously
shaped, lightning-riven pine, standing high above its fellows, that
appeared like an old friend.

"Why, what's this? Can there be two trees, exactly alike, within a
half-day's rowing? I've certainly sketched that old landmark from
every side, and---- Hello! yonder's my group of white-birches or I'm
blind. How queer!"

A few more sweeps and the remains of the camp they had that morning
left were before them, and Pierre could no longer repress his glee.

"Good guide, you! Trust a know-it-all for making mistakes."

"What does it mean?" demanded Adrian, angrily.

"Nothing. Only you picked out a run-about, a little branch of river,
that wanders out of course and then comes home again. Begins and ends
the same. Oh! you're wise, you are."

"Would the other lead us right?"

"Yes."

"But it turns north. We're bound south."

"That's no matter. Can't a river turn, same as runabouts?"

"I