the bank--the thin skeleton bodies
of both reduced to their slenderest dimensions by the soaking water--
presented a spectacle so ludicrous as to elicit a fresh chorus of
laughter from his comrades.

I stayed not till its echoes had died away; but pressing my steed along
the bank, soon arrived at the rapids, where I expected to recover the
trail.

To my joy, hoof-marks were there, directly opposite the point where the
steed had taken to the stream. Rube was right. He had waded safely
across.

Thank heaven! at least from that peril has she been saved!

CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR.

A LILLIPUTIAN FOREST.

On resuming the trail, I was cheered by three considerations. The peril
of the flood was past--she was not drowned. The wolves were thrown
off--the dangerous rapid had deterred them; on the other side their
footprints were no longer found. Thirdly, the steed had slackened his
pace. After climbing the bank, he had set off in a rapid gait, but not
at a gallop.

"He's been pacin' hyar!" remarked Garey, as soon as his eyes rested upon
the tracks.

"Pacing!"

I knew what was meant by this; I knew that gait peculiar to the prairie
horse, fast but smooth as the amble of a palfrey. His rider would
scarcely perceive the gentle movement; her torture would be less.

Perhaps, too, no longer frighted by the fierce pursuers, the horse would
come to a stop. His wearied limbs would admonish him, and then--

Surely he could not have gone much farther?

We, too, were wearied, one and all; but these pleasing conjectures
beguiled us from thinking of our toil, and we advanced more hopefully
along the trail.

Alas! it was my fate to be the victim of alternate hopes and fears. My
new-sprung joy was short-lived, and fast fleeted away.

We had gone but a few hundred paces from the river, when we encountered
an obstacle, that proved not only a serious barrier to our progress, but
almost brought our tracking to a termination.

This obstacle was a forest of oaks, not _giant_ oaks, as these famed
trees are usually designated, but the very reverse--a forest of _dwarf_
oaks (_Quercus nana_). Far as the eye could reach extended this
singular wood, in which no tree rose above thirty inches in height! Yet
was it no thicket--no under-growth of shrubs--but a true forest of oaks,
each tree having its separate stem, its boughs, its lobed leaves, and
its bunches of brown acorns.

"Shin oak," cried the trappers, as we entered the v