to the fact that he was in a wild empire of the forest—­a wilderness—­and that the sun was rapidly approaching his setting.  The bridle held heedlessly, lay loose upon the neck of his steed; and it was only when the noble animal, more solicitous about his night’s lodging than his rider, or rendered anxious by his seeming stupor, suddenly came to a full stand in the narrow pathway, that the youth seemed to grow conscious of his doubtful situation, and appeared to shake off his apathy and to look about him.

He now perceived that he had lost the little Indian pathway which he had so long pursued.  There was no sign of route or road on any side.  The prospect was greatly narrowed; he was in a valley, and the trees had suddenly thickened around him.  Certain hills, which his eyes had hitherto noted on the right, had disappeared wholly from sight.  He had evidently deflected greatly from his proper course, and the horizon was now too circumscribed to permit him to distinguish any of those guiding signs upon which he had relied for his progress.  From a bald tract he had unwittingly passed into the mazes of a somewhat thickly-growing wood.

“Old Blucher,” he said, addressing his horse, and speaking in clear silvery tones—­“what have you done, old fellow?  Whither have you brought us?”

The philosophy which tells us, when lost, to give the reins to the steed, will avail but little in a region where the horse has never been before.  This our traveller seemed very well to know.  But the blame was not chargeable upon Blucher.  He had tacitly appealed to the beast for his direction when suffering the bridle to fall upon his neck.  He was not willing, now, to accord to him a farther discretion; and was quite too much of the man to forbear any longer the proper exercise of his own faculties.  With the quickening intelligence in his eyes, and the compression of his lips, declaring a resolute will, he pricked the animal forward, no longer giving way to those brown musings, which, during the previous hour, had not only taken him to remote regions but very much out of his way besides.  In sober earnest, he had lost the way, and, in sober earnest, he set about to recover it; but a ten minutes’ farther ride only led him to farther involvements; and he paused, for a moment, to hold tacit counsel with his steed, whose behavior was very much that of one who understands fully his own, and the predicament of his master.  Our traveller then dismounted, and, suffering his bridle to rest upon the neck of the docile beast, he coursed about on all sides, looking close to the earth in hopes to find some ancient traces of a pathway.  But his search was vain.  His anxieties increased.  The sunlight was growing fainter and fainter; and, in spite of the reckless manner, which he still wore, you might see a lurking and growing anxiety in his quick and restless eye.  He was vexed with himself that he had suffered his wits to let fall his reins; and his disquiet was but imperfectly concealed under