y with the destinies of the wild kindreds had chosen to
let him save one flock from the slaughterer, and expiate his blameless
treason.

The Laugh in the Dark

Though the darkness under the great trees was impenetrable, it gave an
impression of transparency which invited the eyes to strain and peer,
as if vision might be expected to reward an adequate effort. It was
that liquid darkness which means not mist, but the utter absence of
light on a clear air; and it was filled with elusive yet almost
illuminating forest scents. To the keen nostrils of the man who was
silently mounting the trail, it seemed as if these wild aromas almost
enabled him to veritably see the trees which towered all about him, so
clearly did they differentiate to him their several species as he
passed,--the hemlock, in particular, and the birch, the black poplar,
and the aromatic balsam-fir. But his eyes, though trained to the open,
could in truth detect nothing whatever, except now and then a darting
gleam which might come from a wet leaf, or from the gaze of a watching
wood-mouse, or merely from the stirrings of the blood within his own
brain.

The man was on his way up from the lake, by an old trail long ago
familiar to his feet, to make camp for the night in a deserted lumber
shanty about a quarter of a mile back from the water. Over the dimly
glimmering, windless water, under a cloudless sky, he had groped his
way in his canoe to the old landing. Turning the canoe over his
supplies for protection in case of rain, he had set out for the lumber
shanty with only a blanket and a couple of hardtack. His rifle he had
indifferently left in the canoe, but in his right hand he carried a
paddle, to steady his steps and help him feel his way through the
dark.

Once the grayness of the open shore had faded behind him, the man
found himself walking stealthily, like the stealthiest of the wild
kindred themselves. The trail being well-worn, though long deserted by
man, his feet kept it without difficulty; but he held the paddle out
before him lest he should stumble over a windfall. Presently he took
note of the fact that the trail was marvellously smooth for one that
had been so long deserted, and with a little creeping of the skin,
which was not in any sense fear but rather an acknowledgment of
mystery, he realized that it was other than human feet which were
keeping the lonely path in use. What kind were they, he wondered,--the
great, noiseles