ems
hardly the same old man who puts pen to paper. The impression grows
upon me that I merely narrate incidents which befell a friend I once
knew, but who has long since passed from my vision.

It was wearying work, toiling up the muddy Arkansas, and in the end
disastrous. Occasionally, for miles at a stretch, our hearts were
gladdened by a curve toward the northward, yet we drew westerly so much
we became fearful lest the Jesuit had made false report on the main
course of the stream. Every league plunged us deeper into strange,
desolate country, until we penetrated regions perhaps never before
looked upon by men of our race. The land became more attractive, the
sickly marsh giving place to wide, undulating plains richly decorated
with wild grasses, abloom with flowers, bordered by a thick fringe of
wood. Toward the end of our journeying by boat, after we had passed
two cliffs upreared above the water, the higher rising sheer for two
hundred feet, we perceived to the northward vast chains of hills rising
in dull brown ridges against the sky-line, seemingly crowned with rare
forest growth to their very summits. During all these days and nights
in only two things could we deem ourselves fortunate--we discovered no
signs of roving savages, while wild animals were sufficiently numerous
to supply all our needs.

Three days' journey beyond the great cliff--for we voyaged now during
the daylight, making camp at nightfall--I became convinced of the utter
futility of further effort. By this time I had recovered sufficiently
from my wound to assume a share of labor at the oars, and was pulling
that afternoon, so my eyes could glance past the fiery red crop of the
Puritan, who held the after-oar, to where the Captain and Madame rested
in the stern. I remarked De Noyan's dissatisfied stare along the
featureless shore we skirted, and the lines of care and trouble
becoming daily more manifest upon Madame's face. Thus studying the
two, I cast about in my own mind for some possible plan of escape.

They had been conversing together in low tones, so low, indeed, no
words reached me, while the preacher knew nothing of the language
employed. Nevertheless I could guess its purport. It was sufficiently
clear to all of us that we merely wasted strength longer breasting the
swift current of this river, and were constantly drawing farther from
our goal. Yet I was of proud spirit in those days, finding it not easy
to swallow my h