ers it? 'I would not live always.' Give to us the hope
of an hereafter, a faith that looks through the valley of the shadow
of death, and sees immortality, a world of glory beyond, and what
matters it how soon the hour of our departure shall come?"

CHAPTER XXIX.

A MYSTERIOUS SOUND--TREED BY A MOOSE--ANGLING FOR A POWDER HORN--AN
UNHEEDED WARNING AND THE CONSEQUENCES.

As Spalding ceased speaking, there came from away off, over the forest
in the direction of the tall mountain peaks, a faint sound like the
boom of a cannon, so distant that it could scarcely be heard, and yet
it was distinct and palpable to the senses. I say that it came from
the direction of the mountains, seen dim and shadowy in the distance,
and yet none of us were quite sure of this. We all heard it, but not
one of us could assert that the direction from which it came was a
fixed fact in his mind.

"There, Judge" said Cullen, "I've hearn that sound often among the
mountains, and when I've been driftin' about on these lakes, it never
seems much louder or nearer. It always seems to come from the
mountains, and yet you'll hear it while shantyin' at their base, and
it sounds just as faint and far off as it did just now. What it is, or
where it comes from, I won't undertake to say. The old Ingins who,
five and twenty year ago, fished and hunted over these regions, told
of it as a thing to wonder at, and that it was handed along down from
generation to generation, as one of the mysteries of this wilderness.
I mind once I was out among the Adirondacks, trappin' martin and
sable. I shantied for a week with Crop, under the shadow of Mount
Marcy. It was twenty odd year ago, and that old mountain stood a good
deal further from a clearin' than it does now. Crop and I had a good
many hard days' work that trip; but we got a full pack of martin and
sable skins, and two or three wolf scalps, besides a bear and a
painter, and we didn't complain. Wal, one afternoon, we put up a
shanty in an open spot two miles from our regular campin' ground, and
built our fire for the night. There was no moon, and though the stars
shone out bright and clear, yet in the deep shadow of the forest it
was dark and gloomy enough. We had eaten our supper, and I was smokin'
my last pipe before layin' myself away, when all at once the forest
was lighted up like the day. It was all the more light from the sudden
glare which broke upon the darkness, and there, for an instant, stood