seemed to him a prosy and inconvenient place for the
exhibition of heroism.

"But, Ralph," he exclaimed, now more than ready to bear his part in
the expedition, "I have only shot in my gun. You can't shoot men with
bird-shot."

"Shoot men! Are you crazy? Why, I don't intend to shoot anybody.
I only wish to capture them. My rifle is a breech-loader and has six
cartridges. Besides, it has twice the range of theirs (for there isn't
another such rifle in all Odalen), and by firing one shot over their
heads I can bring them to terms, don't you see?"

Albert, to be frank, did not see it exactly; but he thought it best to
suppress his doubts. He scented danger in the air, and his blood bounded
through his veins.

"How do you expect to track them?" he asked, breathlessly.

"Skee-tracks in the snow can be seen by a bat, born blind," answered
Ralph, recklessly.

They were now climbing up the wooded slope on the western side of the
river. The crust of the frozen snow was strong enough to bear them;
and as it was not glazed, but covered with an inch of hoar-frost, it
retained the imprint of their feet with distinctness. They were obliged
to carry their skees, on account both of the steepness of the slope and
the density of the underbrush. Roads and paths were invisible under
the white pall of the snow, and only the facility with which they could
retrace their steps saved them from the fear of going astray. Through
the vast forest a deathlike silence reigned; and this silence was not
made up of an infinity of tiny sounds, like the silence of a summer
day when the crickets whirr in the treetops and the bees drone in the
clover-blossoms. No; this silence was dead, chilling, terrible. The huge
pine-trees now and then dropped a load of snow on the heads of the bold
intruders, and it fell with a thud, followed by a noiseless, glittering
drizzle. As far as their eyes could reach, the monotonous colonnade
of brown tree-trunks, rising out of the white waste, extended in all
directions. It reminded them of the enchanted forest in "Undine,"
through which a man might ride forever without finding the end. It was
a great relief when, from time to time, they met a squirrel out foraging
for pine-cones or picking up a scanty living among the husks of last
year's hazel-nuts. He was lively in spite of the weather, and the
faint noises of his small activities fell gratefully upon ears already
ap-palled by the awful silence. Occasionally they s