The evening was still, save for the cry of some wild bird of night and the plash of some wavelet breaking on the shelving shore. Trees and shrubbery, underbrush of the shores, glided by slowly, and were swallowed up in the obscurity of the regions passed. Here and there with a skilful sweep of the paddle the pilot changed the course of the canoe to escape contact with some rock or sunken log. Now and then the hunter would give a sign of silence, and the paddles in their incessant sweep would be stilled into inactivity, while the canoe would drift for a moment until the hand of the pilot in the bow grasped some over-swinging tree branch and stayed her downward course. A moment of silence, in which the hunter strained his ears, would ensue, and then with a shake of the head he would give the sign to proceed. Once he insisted much to the protests of the pilot of going ashore. They drew in to the heavily wooded bank and he disappeared with no change on his immovable countenance. The pilot grumbled to himself at this unnecessary caution. The old man was in his dotage or had become filled with childish fear, thought he, and so he informed the others when the hunter was absent. Who was going to hurt them? Not the settlers, for they were all safe abed by this time. Not that wandering band of Shawnese. It would be too perilous for them in these days of peace and in a section already vacated by their fathers to make room for the settlers. After the first hour the work of paddling became less arduous, the force of the current had abated, and they shot into a long stretch of slightly moving water. "Still Water," said the pilot. "It'll be easy from now on until we reach some distance above." "Aye," murmured the hunter; "but it'll not be still for long." "No sign of rain; the sky up there is so closely studded with stars that there's not room for a cloud. There'll be no rain, or I'm no pilot. Haven't I piloted here for years, and before I came to this region I run as many rafts down the Susquehanna as any raftsman in the State." The hunter raised his hand as if deprecating the sound of the pilot's voice, and then said in low tones: "I have lived in the cabin at the Loop for nigh ten years, and have tramped these regions before my cabin was built, and I can read the stream as well as a scholar reads his book. In three hours what we call the 'Still Water' will be running like a mill race." The pilot smiled a smile of superior wisdom. "Look," said the hunter, as he dipped his palm in the water and drew up a little for the pilot's inspection. "The stream is turbid and discoloured, the first sign of the coming flood. There has been great rain at the headwaters. I can see it in the water; I can smell it in the air." The pilot's smile left his features and he scanned the bosom of the Still Water and then: "There's some truth in that."