ng the brake canes that masked a little cove.

The waters were already in the prairie. As he boarded the little
vessel at the stern, a raccoon waddled in noiseless haste over the
bow, and splashed into the wet covert of reeds beyond. If only to keep
from sharing his quarters with all the refuge-hunting vermin of the
noisome wilderness, the one human must move on. He turned the lugger's
prow towards the lake, and spread her sails to the faint, cool breeze.
But when day broke, the sail was gone.

Far and wide lay the pale green leagues of reeds and bulrushes, with
only here and there a low willow or two beside some unseen lagoon, or
a sinuous band of darker green, where round rushes and myrtle bushes
followed the shore of some hidden bayou. The waters of the lake were
gleaming and crinkling in tints of lilac and silver stolen from the
air; and away to the right, and yet farther to the left, stood the
dark phalanxes of cypress woods.

Thus had a thousand mornings risen on the scene in the sight of the
outlaw. Numberless birds fluttered from place to place, snatching
their prey, carolling, feeding their young, chattering, croaking,
warbling, and swinging on the bending rush. But if you looked again,
strange signs of nature's mute anguish began to show. On every log or
bit of smaller drift that rain-swollen bayous had ever brought from
the forest and thrown upon their banks some wild tenant of the jungle,
hare or weasel, cat, otter, or raccoon, had taken refuge, sometimes
alone, but oftener sharing it, in common misery and silent truce,
with deadly foes. For under all that expanse of green beauty, the
water, always abundant, was no longer here and there, but everywhere.

See yonder reed but a few yards away. What singular dark enlargement
of stem is that near its top, that curious spiral growth?--growth! It
is a great serpent that has climbed and twined himself there, and is
holding on for the life he loves as we love ours. And see! On a reed
near by him, another; and a little farther off, another; and
another--and another! Where were our eyes until now? The surface of
the vast brake, as far as one can see such small things, is dotted
with like horrid burdens. And somewhere in this wild desolation, in
this green prospect of a million deaths waiting in silence alike for
harmful and harmless creatures, one man is hiding from all mankind.

CHAPTER XVII.

WELL HIDDEN.

Of all the teeming multitudes of the human w