All day they pushed on through the woodlands, walking in single file, Amos Green first, then the seaman¹, then the lady, and De Catinat bringing up the rear. The young woodsman advanced cautiously, seeing and hearing much that was lost to his companions, stopping continually and examining the signs of leaf and moss² and twig³. Their route lay for the most part through open glades⁵ amid a huge pine forest, with a green sward beneath their feet, made beautiful by the white euphorbia, the golden rod, and the purple aster⁷. Sometimes, however, the great trunks closed in upon them, and they had to grope their way in a dim twilight⁸, or push a path through the tangled⁹ brushwood of green sassafras or scarlet¹⁰ sumach. And then again the woods would shred¹¹ suddenly away in front of them, and they would skirt marshes¹², overgrown with wild rice and dotted with little dark clumps¹⁴ of alder¹⁵ bushes, or make their way past silent woodland lakes, all streaked¹⁶ and barred with the tree shadows which threw their crimsons¹⁷ and clarets and bronzes upon the fringe of the deep blue sheet of water. There were streams, too, some clear and

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