deserted.

The next day the sun rose on a smiling world, the polished reaches of the
river golden mirrors reflecting the forest's green. And we were astir
with the light, preparing for our journey into the unknown country. At
seven we embarked by companies in the flatboats, waving a farewell to
those who were to be left behind. Some stayed through inclination and
disaffection: others because Colonel Clark did not deem them equal to the
task. But Swein Poulsson came. With tears in his little blue eyes he
had begged the Colonel to take him, and I remember him well on that June
morning, his red face perspiring under the white bristles of his hair as
he strained at the big oar. For we must needs pull a mile up the stream
ere we could reach the passage in which to shoot downward to the Falls.
Suddenly Poulsson dropped his handle, causing the boat to swing round in
the stream, while the men damned him. Paying them no attention, he stood
pointing into the blinding disk of the sun. Across the edge of it a
piece was bitten out in blackness.

"Mein Gott!" he cried, "the world is being ended just now."

"The holy saints remember us this day!" said McCann, missing a stroke to
cross himself. "Will ye pull, ye damned Dutchman? Or we'll be the first
to slide into hell. This is no kind of a place at all at all."

By this time the men all along the line of boats had seen it, and many
faltered. Clark's voice could be heard across the waters urging them to
pull, while the bows swept across the current. They obeyed him, but
steadily the blackness ate out the light, and a weird gloaming overspread
the scene. River and forest became stern, the men silent. The more
ignorant were in fear of a cataclysm, the others taking it for an omen.

"Shucks!" said Tom, when appealed to, "I've seed it afore, and it come
all right again."

Clark's boat rounded the shoal: next our turn came, and then the whole
line was gliding down the river, the rising roar of the angry waters with
which we were soon to grapple coming to us with an added grimness. And
now but a faint rim of light saved us from utter darkness. Big Bill
Cowan, undaunted in war, stared at me with fright written on his face.

"And what 'll ye think of it, Davy?" he said.

I glanced at the figure of our commander in the boat ahead, and took
courage.

"It's Hamilton's scalp hanging by a lock," I answered, pointing to what
was left of the sun. "Soon it will be off, and then we'll have li