Here Sterry spoke with mock gravity.

“The name, Wolf Glen, is ominous.”

“We have wolves and bears and other big game in this part of the State, but not nearly as many as formerly.  It hardly pays to hunt them.”

“I hope we shall meet a few bears or wolves,” said Jennie, with her light laugh.

“And why?” demanded the shocked mother.

“I would like a race with them; wouldn’t it be fun!”

“Yes,” replied Sterry, “provided we could outskate them.”

“I never knew that wild animals skate.”

“They can travel fast when they take it into their heads to turn hunter.  I suppose many of the bears are hibernating, but the wolves—­if there are any waiting for us—­will be wide awake and may give us the roughest kind of sport.”

Fred Whitney knew his mother better than did his friend and understood the expression on her face.  So did Jennie, and the couple had such sport of their Boston visitor that the cloud quickly vanished and Monteith felt a trifle humiliated at his exhibition of what might be considered timidity.  Nevertheless he quietly slipped his loaded revolver in the outer pocket of his heavy coat just before starting and when no one was watching him.

Precisely at eight o’clock the three friends, warmly and conveniently clad, with their keen-edged skates securely fastened, glided gracefully up-stream, the mother standing on the porch of her home and watching the figures as they vanished in the moonlight.

She was smiling, but in her heart was a misgiving such as she had not felt before, when her children were starting off for an evening’s enjoyment.  The minute they were beyond sight she sighed, and, turning about, resumed her seat by the table in the centre of the sitting-room, where, as the lamplight fell upon her pale face, she strove to drive away the disquieting thoughts that would not leave her.

It was a pleasing sight as the three young people, the picture of life, health and joyous spirits, side by side, laughing, jesting, and with never a thought of danger, moved out to the middle of the river and then sped toward its source, with the easy, beautiful movement which in the accomplished skater is the ideal of grace.  The motion seemingly was attended with no effort, and could be maintained for hours with little fatigue.

The small river, to which allusion has been made, was one hundred yards in width at the point where they passed out upon its surface.  This width naturally decreased as they ascended, but the decrease was so gradual that at Wolf Glen, fifteen miles away, the breadth was fully three-fourths of the width opposite the Whitney home.  Occasionally, too, the channel widened to double or triple its usual extent, but those places were few in number, and did not continue long.  They marked a shallowing of the current and suggested in appearance a lake.

There were other spots where this tributary itself received others.  Sometimes the open space would show on the right, and further on another on the left indicated where a creek debouched into the stream, in its search for the ocean, the great depository of most of the rivers of the globe.