Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/71

Rh ears his father’s injunction to be watchful.

His way led him along the brook that flowed into the clearing, for it was by following that stream that he would unfailingly  reach the first of the two large ponds lying  between him and the Indian village. Now and then, after he had passed into the forest,  he was able to walk briskly, but for the most  part he had to make his own path, since for  the last year or two the woods had not been  fired thereabouts by the Indians and the underbrush had grown up rankly. Presently a small pond barred his way and he was some  time finding the brook again. The most of two hours had gone before the first of the  two large ponds lay before him. It was a full half-mile long and lay in a veritable quagmire over which David had to make his way  with caution lest he step between the knolls  or the uncertain hummocks of grass and sink  to his middle, which had happened to him  before. Many water birds swam upon the pond, and had he been minded to add game  to his bag he might easily have done so. Mosquitoes attacked him ravenously, for the country was low-lying and no breeze dispelled the sultry stillness of the morning,  and, when laden with a gun and balancing