It was now the wall of the world,
with no path for a human foot. The hills were a purple haze, the trees
along their crests making fantastic pictures against the sky. Beyond the
land of living men, it seemed, an owl hooted, and a belated dove called
and called like a moaning spirit wandering in some lost tarn of the
Styx.

We rode down to the bend of the Valley River over a stretch of sandy
land pre-empted by the cinque-foil and the running brier, the country of
the woodcock and the eccentric kildee. We could hear the low, sullen
roar of the river sweeping north around this big bend, long before we
came to it. Under the stars there is no greater voice of power. We rode
side by side in the deepening twilight, making huge shadows on the
crunching sand. Up to this hour it seemed to me that we had been idling
through some long and pleasant ride, with the loom of evil afar off in
the front. We had talked of peril merrily together, as men loitering in
a tavern talk easily of the wars. But now in the night, under the spell
of the booming water, the atmosphere of responsibility returned.

Ward was depending upon me and the two beside me. Woodford's men moved
back yonder in the Hills, and maybe they moved out there beyond the
water, and we could see nothing and hear nothing but the sand grinding
under the iron of a horse's shoe. In the night the face of the Valley
River was not a pleasant thing to see. It ran muddy and swift, even with
its banks, a bed of water a quarter of a mile in width, its yellow
surface gleaming now and then in the dim light of the evening like the
belly of some great snake.

Standing on its bank we could see the other shore, a line of grey fog.
The yellow tongues of the water lapped the bank, and crept muttering in
among the willows, an ominous, hungry brood.

The roar of the river, now that one stood beside it, seemed not so
great. It was dull, heavy, low pitched, as though the vast water growled
comfortably. The rains in the mountains had filled the bed brimming like
a cup, even in the drought of summer. The valley was wide and deep in
this bend,--too wide and too deep to be crossed by the ordinary
bridge,--so the early men had set up a sort of ferry when they first
came to this water.

It was a rude makeshift, the old men said, two dugouts of poplar lashed
together and paddled, a thing that would carry a man and his horse, or
perhaps a yoke of oxen. Now, the ferry was more pretentious. A wire
cab