almost to the edge, but which
his strong hands pulled out. They seemed to him of the same general
workmanship as the others, and he surmised that the long mound upon
which he was standing had been thrown up by the hand of man.

What was inside the mound? Perhaps the skeletons of men dead a thousand
years or more, men more civilized than the Indians, but gone forever,
and leaving no trace, save some broken pieces of pottery. Possibly the
Indians themselves had destroyed these people, and they did not come
here to live because they feared the ghosts of the slain. But it was no
question that he could solve. He would talk about it later with Paul and
meanwhile he must find some way to reach the others.

He threw down the pottery and left the hill, but, as he swung swiftly
onward, the hill and its contents did not disappear from his mind. He
had a strange sense of mystery. The new land about him might be an old,
old land. He had never thought of it, except as forest and canebrake, in
which the Indians had always roamed, but evidently it was not so. It was
strange that races could disappear completely.

But as he raced on, the feeling for these things fell from him. He was
not so much for the past as Paul was. He was essentially of the present,
and, dealing with wild men in a wild country, he was again a wild man
himself. Among the Indians at the great camp or about it there was not
one in such close kinship with the forest as he. Despite danger and his
anxiety to reach his comrades, he felt all its beauty and majesty, in
truth fairly reveled in it.

He noticed the different trees, the oaks, the elms, the maples, the
walnuts, the hickories, the sycamores, the willows at the edges of the
stream, the dogwoods, and all the other kinds which made up the
immeasurable forest. They were in the early but full foliage of spring,
and the light wind brought odors that were like a perfumed breath.

It was past midnight, when he stopped to enjoy again the fine flavor of
his kingdom. Then he suddenly lay flat among the dead leaves of the year
before, and thrust forward the barrel of his rifle. He had heard a
footfall, the footfall of a moccasin, not much heavier than the fall of
a leaf, and every nerve and faculty within him was concentrated to meet
the new danger.

The sound had come from his right, and raising his head just a little he
looked, but saw nothing, that is nothing new in the waving forest. Yet
Henry was sure that a man