a good deal to do with our impolite tarryin', and
as he is slaapin' with his four mithers, I maan his forefathers, let him
rist in pace."

The boys did not allow their words to delay their hands. The raft was
shoved clear, and the two took their positions upon it, Fred holding the
pole, while his companion looked after the guns. They were astonished to
find, directly after leaving land, that the pole, which was nearly
twenty feet in length, would not reach bottom.

This compelled them to use it as a paddle. The progress was slow, but
the distance was so slight that it did not take them long to reach the
other bank, where they set the structure adrift, so that it could not be
used by any one else.

Looking directly up stream, where the sky was in plain sight, its
blackness startled even the boys, who were used to seeing the most
violent changes of temperature. The hue was not of the dark blue which
often gives warning of the coming tempest, but there was a greenish
tinge to the blackness that would have awed any one.

While they looked, a zigzag ribbon of flame fluttered across the
darkened portion, accompanied by a crash that seemed to shiver the
earth. Fred Linden, who happened to be staring straight at the fiery
burst, saw the upper part of a large cypress that leaned over the water,
leap from the trunk as though it had been sawn short off and flung into
the water.

It was all ablaze, and, falling upright into the current, kept its
equilibrium, that is, it did not fall to any side, but swept slowly
downward as upright as when on the tree, and suggested that some giant
as big as the Statue of Liberty was walking beneath, with an enormous
torch held above his head to light his path.

"Did ye iver see the like?" asked Terry.

"No; it is wonderful."

[Illustration: "Did ye iver see the like?" asked Terry.]

Although it was about mid-day, the heavens were so overcast that the
gloom was like night itself. At the same time the darkness had a ghastly
tinge which made the faces of the boys, when they looked at each other,
livid and unearthly.

The scene was so impressive that they stood motionless, watching the
flaming tree and the inky heavens beyond. Suddenly in the sky they saw a
figure that resembled a vast balloon slightly inclined to one side, and
spinning on its axis with inconceivable swiftness.

At the bottom the snout-like appendage wavered off to one side as though
the amazing velocity of the upper par