at the direction
of the numerous water-courses, through which he waded, were sufficient
to determine his path, and remove his greatest difficulties. In the
meantime, the forest began to change its hues, losing that lively green
which had embellished its arches, in the graver light which is the usual
precursor of the close of day.

While the eyes of the sisters were endeavoring to catch glimpses through
the trees, of the flood of golden glory which formed a glittering halo
around the sun, tinging here and there with ruby streaks, or bordering
with narrow edgings of shining yellow, a mass of clouds that lay piled
at no great distance above the western hills, Hawkeye turned suddenly,
and, pointing upwards towards the gorgeous heavens, he spoke:--

"Yonder is the signal given to a man to seek his food and natural rest,"
he said: "better and wiser would it be, if he could understand the signs
of nature, and take a lesson from the fowls of the air and the beasts of
the fields! Our night, however, will soon be over; for, with the moon,
we must be up and moving again. I remember to have fou't the Maquas,
hereaways, in the first war in which I ever drew blood from man; and we
threw up a work of blocks, to keep the ravenous varmints from handling
our scalps. If my marks do not fail me, we shall find the place a few
rods farther to our left."

Without waiting for an assent, or, indeed, for any reply, the sturdy
hunter moved boldly into a dense thicket of young chestnuts, shoving
aside the branches of the exuberant shoots which nearly covered the
ground, like a man who expected, at each step, to discover some object
he had formerly known. The recollection of the scout did not deceive
him. After penetrating through the brush, matted as it was with briers,
for a few hundred feet he entered an open space, that surrounded a low,
green hillock, which was crowned by the decayed block-house in question.
This rude and neglected building was one of those deserted works, which,
having been thrown up on an emergency, had been abandoned with the
disappearance of danger, and was now quietly crumbling in the solitude
of the forest, neglected, and nearly forgotten, like the circumstances
which had caused it to be reared. Such memorials of the passage and
struggles of man are yet frequent throughout the broad barrier of
wilderness which once separated the hostile provinces, and form a
species of ruins that are intimately associated with the reco