For two days the forest hemmed them in so closely that although frost had half-stripped the deciduous trees, the eye found few vistas save along the river ahead.  On either hand was drawn a continuous curtain of mossed stems and boughs overlapping and interlacing their delicate twigs.  Scarcely a bird sang within the curtain; scarcely a woodland sound broke in upon the monotonous plash of the paddles.  Alder, birch, maple, pine, spruce, and hemlock—­the woods were a lifeless tapestry.  Ahead curved and stretched the waterway, rippled now and again by a musk-rat crossing, swimming with its nose and no more above water.

A little before noon on the third day they emerged from this forest upon a wide track of burnt land; and certain hills of which the blue summits had for some hours been visible above the tree-tops on their right, now took shape from the base up, behind thin clumps of birch, poplar, and spruce—­all of them (but the spruce especially) ragged and stunted in growth.  For the rest this burnt land resembled a neglected pasture, being carpeted for the most part with moss and blueberry.  A mysterious blight lay over all, and appeared to extend to the foot of the hills.

All through the afternoon the chine of these hills closed the landscape; purpled at times by passing clouds, at times lit up by sun-rays that defined every bush and seam on the slopes.  All through the afternoon the folded gullies between the slopes unwound themselves interminably, little by little, as the voyagers traced up the river, paddling almost due southward, along its loops and meanders.

But by nightfall they had turned the last spur of the range, and the next morning opened to them a vastly different landscape:  an undulating country, wooded like a park, with hills indeed, but scattered ones to the south and west, and behind the hills the faint purple dome of a far-distant mountain, so faintly seen that at first Ruth mistook it for a cloud.

She could not tell afterwards—­though she often asked herself the question—­at what point the landscape struck her as being strangely familiar.  Yet she was sure that the recognition came to her suddenly.  Sir Oliver since the morning’s start had been indisposed to talk.  From time to time he drew out his map and consulted it.  The M’Lauchlin lads, on the other hand, seemed to be restless.  During the halt for the midday meal they drew aside together and Ruth heard them conversing in eager whispers.

Possibly this stirred some expectation in her, which passed into surmise, into certainty.  Late in the afternoon she drew in the paddle she had been plying, laid it across the canoe, and called softly,—­

“Oliver!”

He turned.  She was pointing to a hill now full in view ahead of them.

“That cliff . . . you remember—­the eagles?”

He laughed as though the question amused him.

“It is very like.  Yes, certainly, it is very like.  But wait until we open the clump of trees yonder. . . .”