It had been agreed that the company should rendezvous on the lake-shore, at the spot which we have already often mentioned, and which, by common consent, was now beginning to be called Elwood's Landing. And, accordingly, early on the appointed morning, Mark Elwood and his son Claud, having dispatched their breakfast, which Mrs. Elwood had been careful to make an unusually good and plentiful one, shouldered their large hunting packs, with their blankets neatly folded and strapped outside; and, having bid that anxious and thoughtful wife and mother a tender farewell, left the house and proceeded with a lively step to the border of the lake. On reaching their canoe at the landing, they glanced inquiringly around them for some indications of the presence or coming of their expected companions. But not a living object met their strained gaze, and not the semblance of a sound greeted their listening ears. A light sheeted fog, of varying thickness and density in the different portions of the wide expanse,--here thin and spray-like, as if formed of the breath of some marine monster, and there thickening to the appearance of the stratiform cloud,--lay low stretched, in long, slow-creeping undulations, over the bosom of the waveless lake. "The first on the ground, after all," exclaimed Mr. Elwood, on peering out sharply through the partially-obstructing fog in the direction of the outlet of the lake, up through which most of the company, who lived on the rivers below, were expected to come. "That is smart, after so much cautioning to us to be here in season. But they cannot be very far off, can they, Claud?" "One would suppose not," replied the latter; "but sounds, in this dense and quiet state of the atmosphere, could be distinguished at a great distance, and, with all that my best faculties can do, I cannot hear a single sound from any quarter.--But stay, what was that?" "What did you think you heard, Claud?" asked Mr. Elwood, after waiting a moment for the other to proceed or explain. "Why, I can hardly tell, myself," was the musing reply; "but it was some shrill, long-drawn sound, that seemed to come from a great distance in the woods off here to the south-east, or on the lake beyond." "Perhaps it was a loon somewhere up the lake," suggested Mr. Elwood. "It may be so, possibly," rejoined Claud, doubtfully; "but, if there were any inhabitants near enough in that direction, I should think it must be--hark, there it is again! and, as I thought, the crowing of a rooster." "A rooster! then it must be the echo of one, that has somehow struck across from Phillips' barn; but how could that be? Ah, I have just thought: your rooster must be Codman coming down the lake. You know how curiously he imitated that creature at the logging bee, don't you?"