Had they gone upon horseback? It was not probable: the house-utensils could hardly have been transported that way? Nor yet could they have removed them in a wagon? No road for wheels ran within miles of the clearing--that to Swampville, as already stated, being no more than a bridle-path; while the other "traces," leading up and down the creek, were equally unavailable for the passage of a wheeled vehicle. There was but one conclusion to which we could come; and indeed we arrived at it without much delay: they had gone off in a canoe. It was clear as words or eye-witnesses could have made it. Wingrove well knew the craft. It was known as Holt's "dug-out;" and was occasionally used as a ferry-boat, to transport across the creek such stray travellers as passed that way. It was sufficiently large to carry several at once-- large enough for the purpose of a removal. The mode of their departure was the worst feature in the case; for, although we had been already suspecting it, we had still some doubts. Had they gone off in any other way, there would have been a possibility of tracking them. But a _conge_ in a canoe was a very different affair: man's presence leaves no token upon the water: like a bubble or a drop of rain, his traces vanish from the surface, or sink into the depths of the subtle element--an emblem of his own vain nothingness! CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. A DANGEROUS SWEETHEART. Our conjectures as to the mode of their departure were at an end. On this point, we had arrived at a definite knowledge. It was clear they had gone off in the canoe; and with the current, of course: since that would carry them in the direction they intended to travel. The settling of this question, produced a climax--a momentary pause in our action. We stood upon the bank of the stream, bending our eyes upon its course, and for a time giving way to the most gloomy reflections. Like our thoughts were the waters troubled. Swollen by the recent rain-storm, the stream no longer preserved its crystal purity; but in the hue of its waters justified the name it bore. Brown and turbid, they rolled past-- no longer a stream, but a rushing torrent--that spumed against the banks, as it surged impetuously onward. Trees torn up by the roots were carried on by the current--their huge trunks and half-riven branches twisting and wriggling in the stream, like drowning giants in their death-struggle. In the "sough" of the torrent, we heard their sighs--in its roar, the groans of their departing spirits!