Hiram viewed the scene with growing delight. His eyes sparkled
and a smile came to his lips as he crossed, with springy steps,
the open meadow on which the grass was already showing green in
patches.

Between the line of the wood they had left and the breadth of the
meadow was a narrow, marshy strip into which a few stones had
been cast, and on these they crossed dry shod. The remainder of
the bottom-land was firm.

"Ain't this jest a scrumptious place?" demanded Henry, and Hiram
agreed.

At the river's edge they parted the bushes and looked down upon
the oily-flowing brown flood. It was some thirty feet broad and
with the melting of the snows in the mountains was so deep that
no sign was apparent here of the rocks which covered its bed.

Henry led the way up the bank of the stream toward a huge
sycamore that leaned lovingly over the water. An ancient wild
grape vine, its butt four inches through and its roots fairly in
the water, had a strangle-hold upon this decrepit forest monarch,
its tendrils reaching the sycamore's topmost branch.

Under the tree was a deep hole where flotsam leaves and twigs
performed an endless treadmill dance in the grasp of the eddy.

Suddenly, while their gaze clung to the dimpling water, there was
a flash of a bronze body--a streak of light along the surface of
the pool--and two widening circles showed where the master of the