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By this time the sun had set and the moon had risen very fair and round and as yellow as gold, making a great light above the silent tree-tops. Everything now was embalmed in the twilight, and all the world was enshrouded in the mystery of the midsummer eve.

Sometimes their sharp hard wings almost swept his cheek as they wheeled round and round in circles, first narrow, then wide, and wider extending, till at last they soared far above the tallest tree-tops and launching out in the high regions of the air, uttered from time to time a wild shrill scream, or hollow booming sound, as they suddenly descended to pounce with wide-extended throat upon some hapless moth or insect, that sported all unheeding in mid air, happily unconscious of the approach of so unerring a foe.

The white man, standing gazing upwards before the doorway, heard in the hut a confused and broken murmur of distracted words ending with a loud groan. Suddenly Arsat stumbled out with outstretched hands, shivered, and stood still for some time with fixed eyes. Then he said "She burns no more." Before his face the sun showed its edge above the tree-tops rising steadily.

To float, watching cracks and ledges of its flat bottom-rock drift quickly upward; to bend to his oars only when white crests of the rapids yelled for his life; to win escape by sheer strength from points so low down that he sometimes doubted but the greedy forces had been tempted too long; to stake his life, watching tree-tops for a sign that he could yet save it, was the dreadful pastime by which Bedell often quelled passionate promptings to revenge his exile.

Brilliant sunlight broke through the tree-tops, and played around the dark needles, turning them into a brighter, lighter, emerald green. A background of yellow and cream-coloured rocks, visible now through openings in the shrubbery, showed that the boys were approaching a clear space. Here the elder one suddenly stopped, turned to his brother, looked straight at him, and asked,

She looked about on all sides, on the ground and in the tree-tops. And there was no cat anywhere in sight. Meanwhile the birds were all exclaiming, "There! He's here. Now Miss Kitty Cat had better watch out." Again a strange, mocking catcall sounded from somewhere. There was a sort of jeer about it that aroused Miss Kitty Cat's anger. "He's come, has he?" she exclaimed to little Mr.

So the generals lurked behind trees and wished that the picnickers would go away. Meanwhile Major Monkey himself sulked in the tree-tops, hidden high up among the leafy branches, where nobody would be likely to spy him. He watched the boys while they ate their luncheon, which they devoured as soon as they reached the picnic grove.

Before us, over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, but saw clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands a great field of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices.

As before, no answer was returned, and almost immediately his ear caught a muffled sound of footsteps. At the same moment, a night-wind shook the tree-tops; there was a general fluttering and swaying around him; and he came back to himself to find that he was standing rigid, holding on to a slender tree that grew close by the path.

How eagerly their young eyes hung upon those shifting tree-tops, as they hurried by; never before had the dry land seemed quite so glorious as at that particular moment; and they felt that it would be a happy event if they could but plant their feet again on it. Maurice knew something of the river, but Thad had studied the oddities of the Ohio for many a moon, while living upon its breast.