At last the shades of evening began to gather over the silent forest.
The tree-frogs began their doleful piping and the crickets their mournful chirps; and as the shadows continued to thicken, the deep and solemn breathing of nature, peculiar to the wilderness after nightfall, was heard in all around.
One by one the stars looked out through the blue vault of heaven as the darkness increased.
The trio still remained within their covert, silent as the grave itself.
Suddenly their ears caught the sound of voices, and the tramp of feet coming up the stony path that wound along the shore of the little lakelet.
Old Tumult and his companions bent their heads and listened closely.
They heard the voices again. They were the voices of white persons, judging from the sound, a man and woman’s.
With eyes and ears strained to their utmost, the trio watched and listened.
The footsteps came nearer and nearer, but the voices ceased.
A bare rock, over which ran the trail that the man and woman were following, and which jutted out over the waters of the lake, lay between our friends and the two unknown pedestrians.