n overlooked,
where the boy had lain down and fallen asleep. They were pursuing this
forlorn hope, when Elster found herself standing, without any will or
volition of her own, directly in front of the old show bill, with her
eyes fixed upon it, as if it had been an object she had never seen there
before. Then it all came back to her mind, how that picture of the
Indian boy and his Shetland pony had charmed Sprigg's fancy and set him
to dreaming about red moccasins, and how strangely the whim had
possessed him to go to the settlement, where he might make a display of
his fantastic finery. This she told Jervis, and together they ran to the
chest to see if the moccasins were really playing a part in the
mysterious matter.

Pale as death turned Jervis Whitney when he discovered they were gone.
Backward the strong man staggered some paces, as had he been struck on
the breast by a heavy fist, and, sinking down upon an oaken settee,
exclaimed in a voice of horrified astonishment:

"Oh, Nick of the Woods! Nick of the Woods!" That elfin scene in the
forest had come flashing back to his memory, like a prophetic dream, the
interpretation whereof was now to be looked for. "My son Manitou-Echo is
burning to run a race with your son Sprigg." Thus had spoken the Manitou
king; and fantastic as the words had seemed at the time, evident enough
was it now that, couched in them, was a meaning or purpose deeper by far
than the hunter had divined. Perhaps the trial of bodily strength, or
moral virtue, or whatever it was, at which they hinted, had already
begun; and their boy now the subject of some elfish freak for his
follies, or the victim of some elfish retributions for his
transgressions.

Elster stood gazing down on her husband, where, with his face buried in
his hands, he sat, repeating the singular exclamation which had escaped
him on finding the moccasins missing. As yet, for some whimsical,
elf-prompted reason or other, Jervis had told her nothing of his
interview with Nick of the Woods, and whenever she had questioned him
touching the moccasins he had answered that they had been sent to their
boy from Fairyland, thus dodging the truth by telling the literal fact,
knowing that she would treat it as a pleasantry. She was beginning to
fear that the stroke had proved too much for the poor man's strength of
mind, when, after remaining quite silent for some moments, he raised his
head, and looking at her sorrowfully but calmly enough,