The low sun of a half-spent winter afternoon streaked and splashed the soft undulations of the forest floor with thin, infrequent lines, and scattered blotches of yellow light among the thickening shadows.

A solitary hunter, clad in buckskin and gray homespun, thridded his way among the gray trunks of the giant trees, now blended with them and their shadows, now briefly touched by a glint of sunlight, now casting up the powdery snow from the toes of his snowshoes in a pearly mist, now in a golden shower, yet moving as silently as the trees stood, or shadows brooded, or sunlight gleamed athwart them.

Presently he approached a narrow road that tunnelled, rather than seamed, the forest, for the giant trees which closely pillared its sides spread their branches across it, leaving the vast forest arch unbroken.

In the silence of the hour and season, which was but emphasized by the outcry of a suspicious jay and the gentler notes of a bevy of friendly chickadees, the alert ear of the hunter caught a less familiar sound. Faint and distant as it was, he at once recognized in it the slow tread of oxen and the creak of runners in the dry snow, and, standing a little aloof from the untrodden road, he awaited the coming of the possibly unwelcome invaders of the wilderness.

A yoke of oxen soon appeared, swaying along at a sober pace, the breath jetting from their nostrils in little clouds that arose and dissolved in the still air with that of their driver, who stood on the front of a sled laden with a full cargo of household stuff. Far behind the sled stretched the double furrow of the runners, deep-scored lines of darker blue than the universal shadow of the forest, a steadfast wake to mark the course of the voyager till the next snow-storm or the spring thaw cover it or blot it out. As the oxen came opposite the motionless hunter, his attendant jay uttered a sudden discordant cry.

“Whoa, hush! Whoa haw, there! What are you afeard of now? That’s nothin’ but a jay squallin’.” The strong voice of the driver rang through the stillness of the woods, overbearing the monotonous tread of the oxen, the creak of the sled, and the responsive swish and creak of the snow beneath feet and runners.

Unmindful of his voice, the oxen still swerved from the unbeaten track of the forest road and threatened to bring the off runner against one of the great trees that bordered it. The driver sprang from his standing place, and, running forward alongside the cattle, quickly brought them to a halt with a few reassuring words, and a touch of his long, blue-beech gad across their faces.

Looking into the woods to see what had alarmed them, he became aware of the man standing a little way off, as motionless as the great tree trunks around him. Seeing the oxen were now under control, the latter advanced a little and spoke in a low, pleasant voice:

“I didn’t go to skeer your oxen, stranger, and was standin’ still to let ’em pass, but thet jay squalled at me, an’, lookin’ this way, I s’pose they ketched a glimpse of my fur cap an’ took it for some varmint. Cattle is always lookin’ for some sech, in the woods. Your load’s all right, I hope,” he said, coming into the road and looking at the sled, which, though tipped on some hidden obstruction, was yet in no danger of upsetting its freight.

“Why, you’ve got women an’ childern,” and his face lighted up with an expression of pleased interest. “You’re comin’ in to make a pitch. How far might you be goin’, stranger?”

“A little beyond Fort Ti, on this side,” the driver of the oxen answered. “I made a pitch there last year. My name’s Seth Beeman, and I come from Salisbury, Connecticut, and them on the sled are my wife and children.” Seth Beeman knew that, according to the custom of the country and the times, this information would presently be required of him, and the hunter, for such the stranger’s dress, long gun and snowshoes proclaimed him to be, had such an honest face he did not hesitate to forestall the inevitable questions.

“I want to know! A Beeman from ol’ Salisbury,” cried the other. “An’ now I wonder if you be akin to my ol’ comrade in the Rangers, ’Zekiel Beeman?”

“My father’s name was Ezekiel, and he served in Roger’s Rangers.”

“Give me your hand, friend,” cried the hunter, drawing off his mitten with his teeth, and extending his hand as he came near to the other. “Well, I never thought to meet an ol’ friend here in these lonesome woods, to-day. Yes, an ol’ friend, for that’s what a son of ’Zekiel Beeman’s is to me, though I never sot eyes on him afore. You’ve maybe hearn him speak of Job Carpenter? That’s my name.”

“Carpenter? Yes, the name sounds familiar, but you know father wa’n’t a man of many words and never told us much of his sojerin’ days.”

“You’re right, he wa’n’t. We all larnt to keep our heads shut when we was a-scoutin’ an’ a loud word might cost a man his’n an’ many another life.”

Seth wondered how long since the hunter had forgotten the lesson, yet he noticed the voice of the other was never high pitched and he never made a sudden, abrupt movement.

“An’ so these is your wife an’ childern, be they?” said Job, passing toward the sled, whose occupants were so muffled in bed-quilts and blankets that nothing of their forms, and but little of their features, were visible.

“How dedo, marm. How dedo, little uns. Tol’able comf’table, I hope?”

Ruth Beeman answered his kind salutation as audibly as she could out of her mufflings, and the children, a boy of twelve and a girl of three years younger, stared at him with round, wondering eyes.

“It’s a hard life that lies afore women an’ children in this wilderness,” he said to himself, and then, in a louder tone: “Wal, I’m glad you’re goin’ to be nigh the Fort. There’s always a doctor there, an’ it’s sort o’ protection, if the garrison be reg’lars. Now, Seth, start up your team, an’ I’ll boost on the sled till it’s square on the road again.”

So saying, he set his shoulder to one of the sled stakes, while Seth carefully started the oxen forward. With a heaving lurch and prolonged creak, the sled settled upon evener ground without disturbance of its passengers or its burden of house gear and provisions, which, till now, had hidden from view of the hunter a gentle little cow in lead close behind it.

“How far be we from the Fort?” Seth asked.

“Nigh onto five mile,” the hunter answered, after considering their whereabouts a moment. “After a spell you’ll come to a better road on the ice of the crik, if you take the first blazed path beyend here, to your left. It’ll fetch you to my cabin, where you’d better stop till morning, for you can’t no ways git to your pitch till long arter nightfall. I know where it is, for I come across it, last fall, when I was trappin’ mushrat up the crik. My shanty’s the first thing in the shape of a dwelling that you’ll come to, an’ can’t miss it if you foller the back track of my snowshoes. It hain’t so great, but it’s better’n no shelter, an’ you’re more’n welcome to it. Rake open the fire an’ build you a rouster, an’ make yourselves to home. I’ve got some traps to tend to, but I’ll be back afore dark,” and, almost before they could thank him, he disappeared among the trees.

Seth took his place upon the sled, and, as it moved forward, the forest again resumed its solemnity of silence, that was rather made more apparent than at all disturbed by the slight sounds of the party’s progress. It was a silence that their lonely journey had long since accustomed them to, but had not made less depressing, for, in every waking moment, it reminded Seth and his wife how every foot of it withdrew them further from old friends and old associations, and how long and wearisome the days of its endurance stretched before them.

The remainder of the day was made pleasanter by the chance finding of a friend in a strange land, and with a prospect of spending a night under a roof, for, however it might be, it could but be better than the almost shelterless bivouac that had many times been their night lodging since they entered the great Northern Wilderness, that, within a few years, had become known as the New Hampshire Grants.

More than once, when they had fallen asleep with only the mesh of netted branches between them and the serene stars, they had been awakened by the long howl of the wolves answering one another, or by the appalling scream of a panther. Then, with frequent replenishment of the fire, they had watched out the weary hours till morning, alarmed by every falling brand or sough of the breeze, or resonant crack of frost-strained trees.

Seth looked eagerly for the promised trail and was glad to discover the blazed trees and the netted imprint of snowshoes, that, if but briefly, as certainly, identified the path. He turned his oxen into the diverging road, which, though narrow, gave ample room for the sled. After a little it led to the winding channel of a creek crawling through a marsh, whose looped and matted sedges were in turn bordered by the primeval forest and its bristling abatis of great trees, prostrate and bent in every degree of incline.

At last, as the long shadows began to thicken into the pallid gloom of winter twilight, a little cabin was discovered in a notch of clearing, as gray and silent as the gray woods around it. A thin wisp of smoke climbed from the low chimney against the wall of forest, and a waft of its pungent odor came to the travellers. Even as they drew near, its owner also arrived, and gave them hospitable welcome to his hearth, and presently the little room was aglow with light and warmth.

Here Ruth and little Martha thawed away their cramps and chilliness by the big fireplace, while Seth and his son Nathan, with the hunter’s help, unhitched the oxen from the sled. From this they brought the rations of hay and corn, and made the oxen and their comrade, the cow, contented with their roofless lodging behind the cabin.

Then the pork and Indian meal were taken inside. Ruth mixed a johnny-cake with hot water and salt, and set it to bake on its board, tilted before the fire. The frying-pan was filled with pork, and slices of moose meat contributed from Job’s larder.

The little party, ranged on rude seats about the fireplace, so great as to be out of all proportion to the room, chatted of things near and afar, while they grew hungry with every sniff of appetizing cookery.

Nathan was all agog at the peltry that hung from innumerable pegs on the rough log walls. There were skins of many animals that had long been rare, if not extinct, in the old colony where he was born.

There were the broad, round shields of beaver skins, the slenderer and lighter-hued skins of otters, besides the similarly shaped but smaller and darker-colored fisher, with a bundle of the lesser martins, that Job called “saple,” and no end of muskrats and minks. There were, also, half a dozen wolf skins, and, conspicuous in size and glossy blackness, were three bear skins, and beside them hung a tawny panther hide, the huge hinder paws and long tail trailing on the puncheon floor, while the cat-like head seemed to prowl, as stealthily as in life, among the upper shadows and flickerings of the firelight.

Quickly noting the boy’s interest in these trophies, Job made the round of them all, explaining the habits of each animal, the method of its capture, and giving brief narrations of encounters with the larger ones. He exhibited, with the most pride, a beautiful silver-gray foxskin, and an odd-looking spotted and coarse-haired skin, stuffed with moss into some semblance of its form in the flesh. This he brought to the fireside, and set on its fin-like hinder feet, for the inspection of his guests.

“What on airth is it?” Seth Beeman asked.

“’Tain’t of the airth, but of the water,” Job answered, with a chuckle. “I killed it on the ice of the lake airly in the winter. One of the sojers at the Fort see it, an’ he says it’s a seal fish belongin’ to the sea, where he’s seen no end on ’em. But them sojers to the Fort is an ign’ant set like all the reg’lars, that we rangers always despised as bad as they did us, an’ it don’t look no ways reasonable that sech a creatur’ could come all the way up the St. Lawrence, an’ the Iriquois River, an’ most the len’th o’ this lake. My idee is, it’s a fresh-water maremaid, an’ nat’ral to this lake.”

If Seth had any doubt of this theory, he gave it no expression, and the hunter went on:

“An ol’ Injin told me that there’s always ben one o’ these cretur’s seen in this lake a spell afore every war that’s ever ben. But I hope the sign’ll fail this time. I’ve seen enough o’ war an’ I don’t see no chance of another, all Canady bein’ took an’ the Injins in these parts bein’ quilled.”

The johnny-cake, having been baking for some time in its last turn on the board, was now pronounced done. The mixed contents of the frying-pan were turned out on a wooden trencher, and conversation was suspended for the more important matter of supper. Not long after this was disposed of, the host and his guests betook themselves to sleep in quilts and blankets on the puncheon floor, with their feet to the blazing backlog and glowing bed of coals.