And he accordingly quickened his steps, and literally began to whistle a lively tune, by way of silencing the unbidden sensation which he felt conscious had often, since he first met this fair daughter of the wilds, been lurking within. But, though he thus resolved and reasoned the intruding feeling into nothing, yet he felt he would not like to have Avis Gurley know how often the sparkling countenance and witching smile of this new and beautiful face had been found mingling themselves with the previously exclusive images of his dreams. But, if they did so before this second interview, would they do it less now? His head resolutely answered, "Yes, less, till they are banished." His heart softly whispered, "No." And we will not anticipate by disclosing whether head or heart was to prove the better prophet.
CHAPTER XII.
"Away! nor let me loiter in my song,
For we have many a mountain path to tread,
And many a varied shore to sail along,—
By truth and sadness, not by fiction, led."
The day agreed on, by the trappers, for starting on their expedition into the unbroken wilds around and beyond the upper lakes to the extreme reservoirs of the lordly Androscoggin, had at length arrived. All the married men belonging to the company, not having sons of their own old enough, had engaged those of their neighbors to come and remain with their families during their absence from home, which, it was thought probable, would be prolonged to nearly December. Steel-traps and rifles had been put in order, ammunition plentifully provided, and supplies of such provisions as could not be generally procured by the rifle and fish-hook in the woods and its waters, carefully laid in; and all were packed up the night previous, and in readiness for a start the next morning.
It had been agreed that the company should rendezvous on the lake-shore, at the spot which we have already often mentioned, and which, by common consent, was now beginning to be called Elwood's Landing. And, accordingly, early on the appointed morning, Mark Elwood and his son Claud, having dispatched their breakfast, which Mrs. Elwood had been careful to make an unusually good and plentiful one, shouldered their large hunting packs, with their blankets neatly folded and strapped outside; and, having bid that anxious and thoughtful wife and mother a tender farewell, left the house and proceeded with a lively step to the border of the lake. On reaching their canoe at the landing, they glanced inquiringly around them for some indications of the presence or coming of their expected companions. But not a living object met their strained gaze, and not the semblance of a sound greeted their listening ears. A light sheeted fog, of varying thickness and density in the different portions of the wide expanse,—here thin and spray-like, as if formed of the breath of some marine monster, and there thickening to the appearance of the stratiform cloud,—lay low stretched, in long, slow-creeping undulations, over the bosom of the waveless lake.
"The first on the ground, after all," exclaimed Mr. Elwood, on peering out sharply through the partially-obstructing fog in the direction of the outlet of the lake, up through which most of the company, who lived on the rivers below, were expected to come. "That is smart, after so much cautioning to us to be here in season. But they cannot be very far off, can they, Claud?"
"One would suppose not," replied the latter; "but sounds, in this dense and quiet state of the atmosphere, could be distinguished at a great distance, and, with all that my best faculties can do, I cannot hear a single sound from any quarter.—But stay, what was that?"
"What did you think you heard, Claud?" asked Mr. Elwood, after waiting a moment for the other to proceed or explain.
"Why, I can hardly tell, myself," was the musing reply; "but it was some shrill, long-drawn sound, that seemed to come from a great distance in the woods off here to the south-east, or on the lake beyond."
"Perhaps it was a loon somewhere up the lake," suggested Mr. Elwood.