fused by the tangle of vegetation. The trees of the
all-surrounding forest--sweet-gums, water-oaks, magnolias--cast their
shade obliquely along and across his way, and wherever it fell the
undried dew still sparkled on the long grass.

A pervading whisper seemed to say good-by to the great human world.
Scarce the note of an insect joined with his footsteps in the coarse
herbage to break the stillness. He made no haste. Ferns were often
about his feet, and vines were both there and everywhere. The soft
blue tufts of the ageratum were on each side continually. Here and
there in wet places clumps of Indian-shot spread their pale scroll
leaves and sent up their green and scarlet spikes. Of stature greater
than his own the golden-rod stood, crested with yellow plumes,
unswayed by the still air. Often he had to push apart the brake-canes
and press through with bowed head. Nothing met him in the path. Now
and then there were faint signs underfoot as if wheels might have
crushed the ragged turf long weeks before. Now and then the print of a
hoof was seen in the black soil, but a spider had made it her home and
spread across it her silken snares. If he halted and hearkened, he
heard far away the hawk screaming to his mate, and maybe, looking up,
caught a glimpse of him sailing in the upper air with the sunlight
glowing in his pinions; or in some bush near by heard the soft rustle
of the wren, or the ruffling whiff and nervous "chip" of the cardinal,
or saw for an instant the flirt of his crimson robes as he rattled the
stiff, jagged fans of the palmetto.

At length the path grew easier and lighter, the woods on the right
gave place to a field half claimed for cotton and half given up to
persimmon saplings, blackberry-bushes, and rampant weeds. A furry pony
with mane and tail so loaded with cockleburs that he could not shake
them, lifted his head and stared. A moment afterward the view opened
to right and left, and the path struck a grassy road at right angles
and ended. Just there stood an aged sow.

"Unclean one," said the grave wayfarer, "where dwells your
master?--Ignore you the English tongue? But I shall speak not in
another; 'tis that same that I am arriving to bring you."

The brute, with her small bestial eye fixed on him distrustfully and
askance, moved enough to the right to let him pass on the other hand,
and with his coat on his arm--so strong was the October sun--he turned
into the road westward, followed one or