Well, neither Ruth nor any one should
ever again have cause to laugh at him for romantic weakness, if he might
help it by keeping guard over his fancy.
He therefore sternly kept his eyes away from the swamp where mystery
always brooded. He would not look at the wonderful mound near the swamp,
which he never before had passed without wonder. It was then--as it is
now--such an amazing monument to a vanished race. It is so unaccountably
placed, this mountain of earth in the midst of level lowlands; so
astounding in size and so unmistakably the work of unknown human hands.
Never till that night had David's fervid imagination turned toward it
without his beginning forthwith to wonder over the secrets of the ages
which lie buried beneath. He had hitherto always thought of this mound
in association with the mysterious blazed trail through the forest. But
that was much farther off and more directly south, and no one but the
boy had ever found any connection between the two. He, dreaming, would
sometimes imagine that the same vanished race had marked the path
through the forest by cutting the trees on either side--this marvellous
blazed trail which De Soto is sometimes said to have found when he came,
and again to have made himself, regardless of the fact that history does
not mention his being anywhere near.
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