noticed after a while that fleecy vapor was floating before the moon.
The night seemed to be darkening, and a rising wind came out of the
southwest. The touch of the air on, his face was damp. It was the token
of rain, and he felt that it would not be delayed long.

It was no part of his plan to be caught in a storm on the Monongahela.
Besides the discomfort, heavy rain and wind might sink his frail canoe,
and he looked for a refuge. The river was widening again, and the banks
sank down until they were but little above the water. Presently he saw
a place that he knew would be suitable, a stretch of thick bushes and
weeds growing into the very edge of the water, and extending a hundred
yards or more along the shore.

He pushed his canoe far into the undergrowth, and then stopped it in
shelter so close that, keen as his own eyes were, he could scarcely see
the main stream of the river. The water where he came to rest was not
more than a foot deep, but he remained in the canoe, half reclining and
wrapping closely around himself and his rifle a beautiful blanket woven
of the tightest fiber.

His position, with his head resting on the edge of the canoe and his
shoulder pressed against the side, was full of comfort to him, and he
awaited calmly whatever might come. Here and there were little spaces
among the leaves overhead, and through them he saw a moon, now almost
hidden by thick and rolling vapors, and a sky that had grown dark and
somber. The last timid star had ceased to twinkle, and the rising wind
was wet and cold. He was glad of the blanket, and, skilled forest runner
that he was, he never traveled without it. Henry remained perfectly
still. The light canoe did not move beneath his weight the fraction
of an inch. His upturned eyes saw the little cubes of sky that showed
through the leaves grow darker and darker. The bushes about him were
now bending before the wind, which blew steadily from the south, and
presently drops of rain began to fall lightly on the water.

The boy, alone in the midst of all that vast wilderness, surrounded by
danger in its most cruel forms, and with a black midnight sky above him,
felt neither fear nor awe. Being what nature and circumstance had made
him, he was conscious, instead, of a deep sense of peace and comfort.
He was at ease, in a nest for the night, and there was only the remotest
possibility that the prying eye of an enemy would see him. The leaves
directly over his head were s