Presently we came to a trail which seemed wet, as though swampy land were not far away; and into this the Mohican turned, slashing a great scar on the nearest tree as he entered it.

There was a mossy stream ahead, and the banks of it were dark and soft.  Here we rested high and dry on the huge roots of an oak, and ate our midday meal.

In a little while the remainder of our party came gliding through the trees, Boyd ahead.

“Is this the Catharines-town trail?” he asked.  “By God, they’ll never get their artillery through here.  Mark it, all the same,” he added indifferently, and seated himself beside me, dropping his rifle across his knees with a gesture of weariness.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a wan smile.

“Weary of myself, Loskiel, and of a life lived too lightly and now nigh ended.”

“Nigh ended!” I repeated.

“I go not back again,” he said, sombrely.

I glanced sharply at him, where he sat brooding over his rifle; and there was in his face an expression such as I had never before seen there—­ something unnatural that altered him altogether, as death alters the features, leaving them strangely unfamiliar.  And even as I looked, the expression passed.  He lifted his eyes to mine, and even smiled.

“There is,” he said, “a viewless farm which companions even the swiftest on the last long trail, a phantom-pilot which leads only toward that Shadowed Valley of endless rest.  In my ears all day—­ close, close to my ear, I have heard the whisper of this unseen ghost—­ everywhere I have heard it, amid the din of the artillery, on windy hill-tops, in the long silence of the forest, through the noise of torrents in lost ravines, by flowing rivers sparkling in the sun—­ everywhere my pilot whispers to me.  I can not escape,, Loskiel; whatever trail I take, that is the trail; whichever way I turn, that is the way.  And ever my phantom pilots me—­ forward or back, aside or around—­ it is all one to him and to me, for at the end of every trail I take, nearer and nearer draw I to mine end.”

I had heard of premonitions before a battle; had known officers and soldiers to utter them—­ brave men, too, yet obsessed by the conviction of their approaching death.  Sometimes they die; sometimes escape, and the premonition ends forever.  But until the moment of peril is passed, or they fall as they had foretold, no argument will move them, no assurance cheer them.  But our corps had been in many battles during the last three years, and I had never before seen Boyd this way.

He said, brooding on his rifle: 

“The one true passion of my life has been Lana Helmer.  It began ignobly; it continues through all this pain and bewilderment, a pure, clean current, running to the deep, still sea of dreams....  There it is lost; I follow it no further....  And were I here today as upright and as stainless as are you, Loskiel, still I could follow it no further than that sea of dreams.  Nor would my viewless pilot lead me elsewhere than to the destiny of silence that awaits me; and none the less would I hear his whisper in my ears....  My race is run.”