d all the guards to that spot to join in the search,
and now, having doubled back and again embarked, we were every moment
increasing the distance between ourselves and our pursuers. I think we
must have rowed several miles, for ere we landed again, upon a low, flat
and barren shore, the first gray streak of day was showing in the east.

Elma noticed it, and kept her great brown eyes fixed upon it
thoughtfully. It was the dawn for her--the dawn of a new life. Our eyes
met; she smiled at me, and then gazed again eastward, full of silent
meaning.

Having landed, we drew the boat up and concealed it in the undergrowth
so that the guards, on searching, should not know the direction we had
taken, and then we went straight on northward across the low-lying
lands, to where the forest showed dark against the morning gray. The
mist had now somewhat cleared, but the air was keen and frosty.

This wood, we found, was of tall high pines, where walking was not
difficult, a wide wilderness of trees which, hour after hour, we
traversed in the vain endeavor to find the rough path which our guide
told us led for a hundred miles from Alavo down to Tammerfors, the
manufacturing center of the country. But to discover a path in a forest
forty miles wide is a matter of considerable difficulty, and for hours
we wandered on and on, but alas! always in vain.

Faint and hungry, yet we still kept courage. Fortunately we found a
little spring, and all three of us drank eagerly with our hands. But of
food we had nothing, save a small piece of hard rye bread which the Finn
had in his pocket, the remains of his evening meal; and this we gave to
Elma, who, half famished, ate it quickly. We knew quite well that it
would be an easy matter to die of starvation in that great trackless
forest, therefore we kept on undaunted, while the yellow autumn sun
struggled through the dark pines, glinting on the straight gray trunks
and reflecting a golden light in that dead unbroken silence.

How many miles we trudged I have no idea. It was a consolation to know
that we now had no pursuers, yet what fate lay before us we knew not. If
we could only find that forest-road we might come across some
wood-cutter's hut, where we could obtain rough food of some sort, yet
our guide, used as he was to those enormous woods of central Finland,
was utterly out of his bearings, and no mark of civilization attracted
his quick, experienced eye. The light above gradually faded,