They were ever like this, these two great overgrown boys, already celebrated so terribly in song and legend.  And the rank and file of Morgan’s resembled them—­ brave to a fault, innately lawless, of scant education save what the forest had taught them, headstrong, quick to anger, quick to forgive, violent in every emotion through the entire gamut from love to hatred.

Boyd rose, glanced quietly at me, then made his signal.  And in a few moments the riflemen were on the trail again, spotting it wherever a new path led away, trotting steadily forward in single file, my Indians ranging wide on either flank.

Late in the afternoon we came to the height of land, where the little water-courses all ran north; and here we halted, dropped packs, and the men sat down while the Sagamore and I once more went forward to the headwaters of a stream, beside which the narrow and swampy trail ran due north.  And here the nature of the country changed entirely, for beyond it was all one vast swamp, as still and dark as death.

A little way along this blackish stream Mayaro halted, and for a while stood motionless, his powerful arms folded, gazing straight in front of him with the half-closed eyes of a dreaming wolf.

Never had I looked upon so sinister a country or a swamp so vast and desolate.  It seemed more black than dusky, and the gloom lay not in the obscure light of thick-set spruce, pine, and hemlock, but in the shaggy, monstrous, and forbidding growth which appeared to be soiled with some common dye, water, earth, tree-trunks, foliage—­ all wore the same inky livery, and seemed wrought of rusty iron, so still the huge trees stood, with every melancholy branch a-droop.

Sign of life there was none; the current of the narrow stream ran like smooth oil; nor was its motion visible where it wound between soft, black banks of depthless swamp through immemorial shadows.

The Mohican’s voice came to me, low in the silence, sounding dull and remote; nor did his dreaming eyes move in their vague intensity.

“This is the land of Amochol,” he said.  “Here, through these viewless shades, his sway begins, as this stream begins, whose source is darkness and whose current moves slowly like thick blood.  Here is the haunt of witch and sorcerer—­ of the hag Catrine, of the Wyoming Fiend, of Amochol—­ of Amochol!  Here run the Andastes, hunting through the dusk like wolves and foxes—­ running, smelling, listening, ever hunting.  Here slink the Cat-People under a moon which is hidden forever by this matted forest roof.  This is the Dark Empire, O Loskiel!  Behold!”

A slight shudder chilled me, but I said calmly enough: 

“Where lies Catharines-town, O Sagamore?”

“This thick, dark stream runs through it.”

“Through Catharines-town?”

“Aye.”

“And then?”

“Along the vast chain of inland seas—­ first into the Lake of the Senecas, then to that of the Cayugas, fed by Owasco, by Onondaga, by Oneida, until it is called Oswego, and flows north by the great fort into the sea Ontario.”