EVENING ON FOLLANSBEE. I25 



ter found its way down to the lake. The mouth of the 

 stream was wide, and a dozen rods or so from the shore 

 there were masses of lily pads growing from the mud 

 which the stream brought into the lake. Between the 

 pads and the mouth of the stream we dropped anchor, and 

 I threw my flies over the surface of the clear water. 



It was long before we had a rise — so long that I began 

 to doubt the tremendous stories with which my old friend 

 Turner had been amusing me. I changed my flies. I 

 led with a yellow and gold, and followed him with a plain 

 brown ; and then I led with a scarlet ibis, and followed 

 with a hog's wool gray; and then I changed and changed 

 again, trying large flies and small gnats, hackles and im- 

 itation grubs; and then I gave up casting, and, lying back 

 in the stern of my little boat, watched the splendor of 

 the sky from which the sun had gone a little before. 



The day had died most gloriously. The " sword of the 

 sun," that had lain across the forest, was withdrawn and 

 sheathed. There was a stillness on land and water and 

 in the sky that seemed like the presence of an invisible 

 majesty. Eastward, the lofty pine-trees rested their green 

 tops in an atmosphere whose massive blue seemed to sus- 

 tain and support them. Westward, the rosy tints along 

 the horizon deepened into crimson around the base of the 

 St. Regis, and faded into black toward the north. 



No sign of life, human or inhuman, was any where visi- 

 ble or audible, except within the little boat where we two 

 floated ; and peace, that peace that reigns where no man 

 is — that peace that never dwells in the abodes of men — 

 here held silent and omnipotent sway. 



But a change was coming. The first premonition of it 

 was a sound in the tree-tops, that sighing, soughing of the 

 pines which you have so often heard. At all times and 



