o, like a pointer in pursuit of a partridge. I had
hoped we might trace them by the tracks; but this hope was abandoned, on
perceiving that the rain had obliterated every index of this kind. Even
the hoof-prints of my own horse--made but an hour before--were washed
full of mud, and scarcely traceable.

Had they gone upon horseback? It was not probable: the house-utensils
could hardly have been transported that way? Nor yet could they have
removed them in a wagon? No road for wheels ran within miles of the
clearing--that to Swampville, as already stated, being no more than a
bridle-path; while the other "traces," leading up and down the creek,
were equally unavailable for the passage of a wheeled vehicle.

There was but one conclusion to which we could come; and indeed we
arrived at it without much delay: they had gone off in a canoe. It was
clear as words or eye-witnesses could have made it. Wingrove well knew
the craft. It was known as Holt's "dug-out;" and was occasionally used
as a ferry-boat, to transport across the creek such stray travellers as
passed that way. It was sufficiently large to carry several at once--
large enough for the purpose of a removal. The mode of their departure
was the worst feature in the case; for, although we had been already
suspecting it, we had still some doubts. Had they gone off in any other
way, there would have been a possibility of tracking them. But a
_conge_ in a canoe was a very different affair: man's presence leaves no
token upon the water: like a bubble or a drop of rain, his traces vanish
from the surface, or sink into the depths of the subtle element--an
emblem of his own vain nothingness!

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

A DANGEROUS SWEETHEART.

Our conjectures as to the mode of their departure were at an end. On
this point, we had arrived at a definite knowledge. It was clear they
had gone off in the canoe; and with the current, of course: since that
would carry them in the direction they intended to travel. The settling
of this question, produced a climax--a momentary pause in our action.
We stood upon the bank of the stream, bending our eyes upon its course,
and for a time giving way to the most gloomy reflections. Like our
thoughts were the waters troubled. Swollen by the recent rain-storm,
the stream no longer preserved its crystal purity; but in the hue of its
waters justified the name it bore. Brown and turbid, they rolled past--
no longer a stream,