thought of
what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm
replaced depression.

"It's no use grizzling because we can't have those fellows with us all
the time," remarked Neal philosophically. "'Twas a big piece of luck our
running against them at all. And I've a sort of feeling that this won't
be the end of it; we'll come across them again some day or other."

"And at all events we'll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as we
go back," said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.

"Well, needless to say, I'd have been glad of their company for the rest
of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us,
it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We're a
big party already for moose-calling or stalking--three of us, with
Herb;" this from Cyrus.

"Now, fellows, don't you think we'd better get a move on us?" added the
leader. "We've half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right
here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let's keep a stiff
upper lip, and the journey will soon be over."

It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the
brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men
could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly
fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then
of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round.
Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were
nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal.
Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew
them nearer to him.

They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left,
while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour's tramping brought
them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.

Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced
to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back
the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently
countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.

The irregular shores of the lake were broken by "logons," narrow little
bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by
evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite
bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to
the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still