The moon was lowering now. Already the shadow of the stream's bordering trees had reached her. First the stars vanished, then the moon faded into a dim patch of light, finally that disappeared, a chill breeze swept down from a neighboring mountain, and the trees began to moan and creak. Then a fiercer blast swept through the forest, the great firs and spruces bent and groaned and screamed. Surely the spites were gathering in force again, and this was their doing. Once more she began to hear them creeping, crawling, over the bridge. They spit, they snarled, they growled. The darkness grew more intense, no longer could the river's course be seen, but only a black chasm. All through her mad flight the wilderness had been ghostly and spectral in the moonlight; now it had become lost in inky blackness, yet alive with demoniac voices. All the goblin forms and hideous shapes of Old Tomah's fancy were rushing and leaping about. Now high up in the tree-tops, now deep in the hollows, they screamed and shrieked and moaned. And now, just as this fierce battle of sound and spectral shape was at its worst, and Chip, a hopeless, helpless mite of humanity, crouched low upon the bridge, suddenly a vicious growl reached her, and raising her head she saw at the bridge's end two gleaming eyes! CHAPTER II Martin Frisbie and his nephew Raymond Stetson, or Ray, were cutting boughs and carrying them to two tents standing in the mouth of a bush-choked opening into the forest. In front of this Angie, Martin's wife, was placing tin dishes, knives, and forks, upon a low table of boards. Upon the bank of a broad, slow-running stream, two canoes were drawn out, and halfway between these and the table a camp-fire burnt. Here Levi, Martin's guide for many trips into this wilderness, was also occupied, intently watching two pails depending from bending wambecks, a coffee-pot hanging from another, and two frying-pans, whose sputtering contents gave forth an enticing odor. Twilight was just falling, the river murmured in low melody, and a few rods above a small rill entered it, adding a more musical tinkle. Soon Levi deftly swung one of the pails away from the flame with a hook-stick and speared a potato with a fork. "Supper ready," he called; and then as the rest seated themselves at the table, he advanced, carrying the pail of steaming potatoes on the hooked stick and the frying-pan in his other hand. The meal had scarce begun when a crackling in the undergrowth back of the tent was heard, and on the instant there emerged a girl. Her clothing was in shreds, her face and hands were black with mud, streaks of blood showed across cheek and chin, and her eyes were fierce and sunken. "For God's sake give me suthin' to eat," she said, looking from one to another of the astonished group. "I'm damn near starved--only a bite," she added, sinking to her knees and extending her hands. "I hain't eat nothin' but roots 'n' berries for three days."