"What good would it do us?" asked Forester.
"Why, we might make something of it," said Marco. "Perhaps I could make a little box."
"And that would serve as a souvenir of this expedition," added Forester.
"A souvenir?" said Marco,—"what is that?"
"Why, something to remember it by," replied Forester. "Hereafter, whenever you should see the box, you would be reminded of our wanderings and perils in this wilderness."
"Well," said Marco, "let us take it."
The farther conversation of our adventurers was interrupted by a sound, like that of wagon wheels, coming along the main road, which they had just left.
"There comes some traveller," exclaimed Forester. "Let us go and enquire about our way."
"Hark!" said Marco.
At this instant, the sound of the wheels suddenly stopped, and Marco and Forester heard the voice of a man calling out earnestly to his horse, "Whoa! whoa!" as if something had happened. Marco and Forester hastened to the spot, where they found that the horse had fallen down, and the man was trying in vain to get him up. The harness was drawn so tight about the horse's limbs, by the constrained position in which he was lying, that he could not get up, and the man could not extricate him. The man had gone behind, and had drawn the wagon back, so as to loosen the pressure of the harness upon the horse, but, until Forester and Marco came, there was no one to unbuckle the straps when they were thus loosened; and, if the man let go of the wagon, to go and unbuckle the harness, it was drawn back again at once by the tension of the straps, and made as tight as before.