"Do you see these marks?" Wolfgang asked, pointing to some faint, scarce distinguishable, light spots, which might be made out about eight feet from the ground, upon the bark of the trees under which they stood. "Do you see these marks? thus high the water rose last spring; my house, it is true, lies higher than this, yet it came into our room, and it carried off about thirty cords of wood with it." "And you remained here?" "What will not one do to earn money? The steamers use much wood, and pay tolerably well; I wanted to lay by enough to buy a little farm by and by in a wholesome district; now my wife is dead, and I----But let us start; it is getting late." "But you are not going to leave your house now to accompany us?" asked Siebert, surprised; "suppose in the meanwhile----" "My other negro will remain here," Wolfgang interrupted him. "Sam, the old fellow whom you see coming yonder, is faithful and honest; I can rely upon him; besides, you would hardly reach your destination without a guide, so that there is no choice." "Oh, we might follow the road, you know," said Becher. "Yes, if there were a road thither," answered the farmer, "but to the spot which you have described to me there leads no road, and if there are really houses there, the place must be very much overgrown with second-growth brush, otherwise I must have come upon them in some of my hunting expeditions; perhaps it is the place which the hunters call the dead clearing." "Have you much game in this neighbourhood?" asked Von Schwanthal, who appeared much interested in this subject. "Pretty well," replied the farmer, "but it is difficult to get at; the woods are too close, and the game itself is shy; it requires a practised hunter to track and kill a deer." "Do you happen to know a certain Dr. Normann?" Becher now suddenly inquired, as if struck by a new idea. "Normann?" said the farmer, trying to recollect, "Normann; no, the name is strange to me--why?" "It is the name of the man who sold us this piece of land," said Pastor Hehrmann; "from all, however, that I have hitherto seen, I scarcely think that he ever set foot here, and almost dread that Mr. Helldorf's prophecies will be fulfilled." "Helldorf?" asked Wolfgang, in his turn, surprised; "Helldorf--where did you meet with him?" "In New York," said Siebert; "do you know him?" "_Do_ I know him!" replied Wolfgang; "I passed my happiest time here in America, beside him in Arkansas, and had it not been for my mad endeavour to earn a sum of money, I might have been still with my Maria at the foot of the pleasant Magazine Hill. Oh! that I had never seen the Mississippi again." "Then you consider this climate very unhealthy?"