Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/258

Rh sun. A deep hush lay over the scene. And, hardly had we landed, almost too weary to drag ourselves up the bank, when Gallup stepped back into his Maine canoe and pushed off downstream without a word. He stood upright; he did not sit or kneel. His figure was outlined one minute against the red sky, the next his silhouette merged into the dark forest beyond. He disappeared.

He had gone, we agreed, for one of two reasons: to get food, or to return in the dark and pick us off, much as we picked off the grouse from the branches. We inclined towards the latter theory--and kept eyes and ears wide open. We made a diminutive fire in a hollow, lest we be too visible in the surrounding darkness. We listened, watched, and waited. It was already dusk. The night fell quickly. River and forest became an impenetrable sheet of blackness, our tiny fire, almost too small to cook on, the only speck of light. The stars came out, peeping through the branches. There was no wind. We shivered in the cold, listening for every slightest sound ... and the hours passed.

"He'll wait till we're asleep," said R.M., keeping his eyes open with the greatest difficulty. Paxton fingered his revolver and mumbled "Ouch! Ouch!"

Only the cold prevented us falling asleep, as, weapons in hand, we took turns to watch and listen. Had we the right to fire the instant we saw a figure? Should we wait till the scoundrel made a sign? We discussed endlessly in whispers. Though no wind stirred the branches, the noises in that "silent" forest never ceased, because no forest ever is, or can be, really silent. The effort of listening produced them by the dozen. On every side twigs snapped and dry wood crackled. Soft, stealthy footsteps were everywhere on the pine-needles. Canoes landed higher up and lower down; paddles dripped out in the river as someone approached; sometimes two or three dim figures crouched low on the shore, sometimes only one. Finally, for safety's sake, we let the fire go out altogether. Rh