oth abrasions along their sides
made by the grinding passage of long logs down the incline. The track
itself was slippery from this, and preoccupied all Hamlin's skill as a
horseman, even to the point of stopping his usual careless whistle.
At the end of half an hour the track became level again, and he was
confronted with a singular phenomenon.

He had entered the wood, and the trail seemed to cleave through a
far-stretching, motionless sea of ferns that flowed on either side to
the height of his horse's flanks. The straight shafts of the trees rose
like columns from their hidden bases and were lost again in a roof
of impenetrable leafage, leaving a clear space of fifty feet between,
through which the surrounding horizon of sky was perfectly visible.
All the light that entered this vast sylvan hall came from the sides;
nothing permeated from above; nothing radiated from below; the height
of the crest on which the wood was placed gave it this lateral
illumination, but gave it also the profound isolation of some temple
raised by long-forgotten hands. In spite of the height of these clear
shafts, they seemed dwarfed by the expanse of the wood, and in the
farthest perspective the base of ferns and the capital of foliage
appeared almost to meet. As the boy had warned him, the slide had turned
aside, skirting the wood to follow the incline, and presently the little
trail he now followed vanished utterly, leaving him and his horse adrift
breast-high in this green and yellow sea of fronds. But Mr. Hamlin,
imperious of obstacles, and touched by some curiosity, continued to
advance lazily, taking the bearings of a larger red-wood in the centre
of the grove for his objective point. The elastic mass gave way before
him, brushing his knees or combing his horse's flanks with wide-spread
elfin fingers, and closing up behind him as he passed, as if to
obliterate any track by which he might return. Yet his usual luck did
not desert him here. Being on horseback, he found that he could detect
what had been invisible to the boy and probably to all pedestrians,
namely, that the growth was not equally dense, that there were certain
thinner and more open spaces that he could take advantage of by more
circuitous progression, always, however, keeping the bearings of the
central tree. This he at last reached, and halted his panting horse.
Here a new idea which had been haunting him since he entered the wood
took fuller possession of him. He had