Teddy also was resting upon his paddle, and scrutinizing the point in question; but he seemed little affected by what had taken place.  His face was as expressionless as one of the bowlders, save the ever-present look of imperturbable good-humor.

The young woman seemed more absorbed than either of her companions, in attempting to divine this mystery that had so suddenly come upon them.  More than once she raised her hand, as an admonition for Teddy to preserve silence.  Finally, however, his impatience got the better of his obedience, and he broke the oppressive stillness.

“And what does ye make of it, Miss Cora, or Master Harvey?” he asked, after a few moments, dipping his paddle at the same time in the water.  “Arrah, now, has either of ye saan anything more than the same bowlders there?”

“No,” answered the man, “but we may; keep a bright look-out, Teddy, and let me know what you see.”

The Irishman inclined his head to one side, and closed one eye as if sighting an invisible gun.  Suddenly he exclaimed, with a start: 

“I see something now, sure as a Bally-ma-gorrah wake.”

“What is it?”

“The sun going down in the west, and tilling us we’ve no time to shpare in fooling along here.”

“Teddy, don’t you remember day before yesterday when we came out of the Mississippi into this stream, we observed something very similar to this?”

“An’ what if we did, zur?  Does ye mane to say that a rock or two can’t git tired of layin’ in bed for a thousand years and roll around like a potaty in a garret whin the floor isn’t stiddy?”

“It struck us as so remarkable that we both concluded it must have been caused purposely by some one.”

“Me own opinion was, ye remember, that it was a lot of school-boys that had run away from their master, and were indulging themselves in a little shport, or that it was the bears at a shindy, or that it was something else.”

“Ah!  Teddy, there are times when jesting is out of place,” said the young wife, reproachfully; “and it seems to me that when we are alone in this vast wilderness, with many and many a long mile between us and a white settlement, we should be grave and thoughtful.”

“I strives to be so, Miss Cora, but it’s harder than paddling this cockle-shell of a canoe up-shtream.  My tongue will wag jist as a dog’s tail when he can’t kape it still.”

The face of the Irishman wore such a long, woebegone expression, that it brought a smile to the face of his companion.  Teddy saw this, and his big, honest blue eyes twinkled with humor as he glanced upward from beneath his hat.

“I knows yees prays for me, Misther Harvey and Miss Cora, ivery night and morning of your blessed life, but I’m afeard your prayers will do as little good for Teddy as the s’arch-warrant did for Micky, the praist’s boy, who stole the praist’s shirt and give it away because it was lou—­”