"
Watching the barge pass out of sight beneath the overhanging trees,
David turned to see a small dark object, leading two long verging lines
of silvery ripples across the glittering current. This cleft the water
near the Shawnee Crossing, and might, not long before, have been the
plumed head of a warrior wanting his canoe. But since the warriors were
all gone so strangely and suddenly, this brown speck now crossing the
river must have been the antlered head of a deer swimming to the other
side, thus giving the hunters warning that these green hills would soon
be white with snow. If so, there was no other sign of nearing winter.
The sombre forest stretching away from the opposite shore had not yet
been brightened by a touch of frost. The leaves on the near-by trees,
the great oaks and elms and poplars standing around Cedar House, were
thinning only through ripeness, and drifting very slowly down to the
green and growing grass. On the tall maples perfection alone had culled
the foliage, so wreathing the bronze boughs with rarer garlands of
fretted gold.
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