And this penetrating solitude marred somewhat the pleasure which might have been found in the picturesque scenery, and caused the voyagers, to whom this country was new, to take less interest in the gaily-feathered birds and stealthy animals that were to be seen on the way.  By the forms of wild life along the banks of the river, this strange intruder on their peace was regarded with attention.  The birds and beasts evinced little fear of the floating rafts.  The sandhill crane, stalking along the shore, lifted his long neck as the unfamiliar thing came floating by, and then stood still and silent as a statue until the rafts disappeared from view.  Blue-herons feeding along the bars, saw the unusual spectacle, and, uttering surprised “booms,” they spread wide wings and lumbered away along the shore.  The crows circled above the voyagers, cawing in not unfriendly excitement.  Smaller birds alighted on the raised poles, and several—­a robin, a catbird and a little brown wren—­ventured with hesitating boldness to peck at the crumbs the girls threw to them.  Deer waded knee-deep in the shallow water, and, lifting their heads, instantly became motionless and absorbed.  Occasionally a buffalo appeared on a level stretch of bank, and, tossing his huge head, seemed inclined to resent the coming of this stranger into his domain.

All day the rafts drifted steadily and swiftly down the river, presenting to the little party ever-varying pictures of densely wooded hills, of jutting, broken cliffs with scant evergreen growth; of long reaches of sandy bar that glistened golden in the sunlight, and over all the flight and call of wildfowl, the flitting of woodland songsters, and now and then the whistle and bellow of the horned watchers in the forest.

The intense blue of the vault above began to pale, and low down in the west a few fleecy clouds, gorgeously golden for a fleeting instant, then crimson-crowned for another, shaded and darkened as the setting sun sank behind the hills.  Presently the red rays disappeared, a pink glow suffused the heavens, and at last, as gray twilight stole down over the hill-tops, the crescent moon peeped above the wooded fringe of the western bluffs.

“Hard an’ fast she is,” sang out Jeff Lynn, as he fastened the rope to a tree at the head of a small island.  “All off now, and’ we’ll hev’ supper.  Thar’s a fine spring under yon curly birch, an’ I fetched along a leg of deer-meat.  Hungry, little ’un?”

He had worked hard all day steering the rafts, yet Nell had seen him smiling at her many times during the journey, and he had found time before the early start to arrange for her a comfortable seat.  There was now a solicitude in the frontiersman’s voice that touched her.

“I am famished,” she replied, with her bright smile.  “I am afraid I could eat a whole deer.”