the man could give no name.

"One would want half a dozen lives to be able to get at all of it, my
lad," said Shaddy quietly, "and there's such lots of things that cheat
you so."

"Hist! There's another splash," whispered Rob.

"Ay; there's no mistake about that, my lad. There it goes again, double
one. It's as plain as if you can see it, a big fish springing out of
the water, turning over, and falling in again with a flop. You don't
think there's no fish in the river now, do you?"

"Oh no. I don't doubt it now," whispered Rob, as he listened to fish
after fish rising, and all apparently very large.

"Makes a man wonder what they are jumping after, unless it is the stars
shining in the water. You hear that?"

"Yes."

"And that, too?"

"Yes, I hear them," replied Rob, unable to repress a shiver, so strange
and weird were the cries which came mournfully floating across.

"Well, them two used to puzzle me no end--one of 'em a regular roar and
the other quite a moan, as if somebody was a-dying."

"You know what it is now?"

"Yes, and you'd never guess, my lad, till you said one was made by a
bird."

"A bird?"

"Yes, a long-legged heron kind of thing as trumpets it out with a roar
like a strange, savage beast; and the other moaning, groaning sound is
made by a frog. I don't mind owning it used to scare me at first."

Rob sat listening to the weird chorus going on in the forest and
watching the stars above, and their slightly blurred reflections in the
water which went whispering by the prow and side of the boat. It was
all so solemn, and strange, and awe-inspiring that, in spite of a
feeling of dread which he could not master, he was glad to be there,
wakeful, trying to picture the different creatures prowling about in the
darkness of the primeval forest. He had listened time after time on the
voyage up, but then the schooner was close at hand, and they passed
towns and villages on the east bank; but here they were farther away in
the heart of the wild country, and on the very edge of a forest
untrodden by the foot of man, and maybe teeming with animal life as new
as it was strange. And in amongst this they were soon going to plunge!

It had been the dream of the boy's life to penetrate one of the
untrodden fastnesses of nature, but now that he was on the threshold
listening in the darkness of night, there was something terrible both in
the silence and in the sounds which made him ask himself wh