Page:The last of the Mohicans (1826 Volume 2).djvu/10

 scout did not deceive him. After penetrating through the brush, matted as it was with briars, for a few hundred feet, he entered into an open space, that surrounded a low, green hillock, which was crowned by the decayed block-house in question. This rude and neglected building was one of those deserted works, which, having been thrown up on an emergency, had been abandoned with the disappearance of danger, and was now quietly crumbling in the solitude of the forest, neglected, and nearly forgotten, like the circumstances which had caused it to be reared. Such memorials of the passage and struggles of man are yet frequent throughout the broad barrier of wilderness, which once separated the hostile provinces, and form a species of ruins, that are intimately associated with the recollections of colonial history, and which are in appropriate keeping with the gloomy character of the surrounding scenery. The roof of bark had long since fallen and mingled with the soil, but the huge logs of pine, which had been hastily thrown together, still preserved their the