The Young Trailers: A Story of Early Kentucky

  CHAPTER XI

  THE FOREST SPELL

  When the adventurers returned the rifle and ax were laid aside atWareville, for the moment, because the supreme test was coming. The soilwas now to respond to its trial, or to fail. This was the vital questionto Wareville. The game, in the years to come, must disappear, the forestwould be cut down, but the qualities of the earth would remain; if itproduced well, it would form the basis of a nation, if not, it would bebetter to let all the work of the last year go and seek another homeelsewhere.

  But the settlers had little doubt. All their lives had been spent closeto the soil, and they were not to be deceived, when they came over themountains in search of a land richer than any that they had tilledbefore. They had seen its blackness, and, plowing down with the spade,they had tested its depth. They knew that for ages and ages leaf andbough, falling upon it, had decayed there and increased its fertility,and so they awaited the test with confidence.

  The green young shoots of the wheat, sown before the winter, were thefirst to appear, and everyone in Wareville old enough to know theimportance of such a manifestation went forth to examine them. Mr. Ware,Mr. Upton and Mr. Pennypacker held solemn conclave, and the finalverdict was given by the schoolmaster, as became a man who might not beso strenuous in practice as the others, but who nevertheless was morenearly a master of theory.

  "The stalks are at least a third heavier than those in Maryland orVirginia at the same age," he said, "and we can fairly infer from itthat the grain will show the same proportion of increase. I take a thirdas a most conservative estimate; it is really nearer a half. Warevillecan, with reason, count upon twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre,and it is likely to go higher."

  It was then no undue sense of elation that Wareville felt, and it wasshared by Henry and Paul, and even young Lucy Upton.

  "It will be a rich country some day when I'm an old, old woman," shesaid to Henry.

  "It's a rich country now," replied he proudly, "and it will be a long,long time before you are an old woman."

  They began now to plow the ground cleared the autumn before--"newground" they called it--for the spring planting of maize. This, oftentermed "Indian corn" but more generally known by the simple name corn,was to be their chief crop, and the labor of preparation, in which Henryhad his full share, was not light. Their plows were rude, made bythemselves, and finished with a single iron point, and the ground, whichhad supported the forest so lately, was full of roots and stumps. So thepassage of the plow back and forth was a trial to both the muscles andthe spirit. Henry's body became sore from head to foot, and by and by,as the spring advanced and the sun grew hotter, he looked longingly atthe shade of the forest which yet lay so near, and thought of the deep,cool pools and the silver fish leaping up, until their scales shone likegold in the sunshine, and of the stags with mighty antlers coming downto drink. He was sorry for the moment that he was so large and strongand was so useful with plow and hoe. Then he might be more readilyexcused and could take his rifle and seek the depths of the forest,where everything grew by nature's aid alone, and man need not work,unless the spirit moved him to do so.

  They planted the space close around the fort in gardens and here afterthe ground was "broken up" or plowed, the women and the girls, all talland strong, did the work.

  The summer was splendid in its promise and prodigal in its favors. Therains fell just right, and all that the pioneers planted came up inabundance. The soil, so kind to the wheat, was not less so to the cornand the gardens. Henry surveyed with pride the field of maize cultivatedby himself, in which the stalks were now almost a foot high, looking inthe distance like a delicate green veil spread over the earth. Hissatisfaction was shared by all in Wareville because after thisfulfillment of the earth's promises, they looked forward to continuedseasons of plenty.

  When the heavy work of planting and cultivating was over and there wasto be a season of waiting for the harvest, Henry went on the greatexpedition to the Mississippi.

  In the party were Ross, Shif'less Sol, the schoolmaster, Henry and Paul.Wareville had no white neighbor near and all the settlements lay to thenorth or east. Beyond them, across the Ohio, was the formidable cloud ofIndian tribes, the terror of which always overhung the settlers. West ofthem was a vast waste of forest spreading away far beyond theMississippi, and, so it was supposed, inhabited only by wild animals. Itwas thought well to verify this supposition and therefore the exploringexpedition set out.

  Each member of the party carried a rifle, hunting knife and ammunition,and in addition they led three pack horses bearing more ammunition,their meal, jerked venison and buffalo meat. This little army expectedto live upon the country, but it took the food as a precaution.

  They started early of a late but bright summer morning, and Henry foundall his old love of the wilderness returning. Now it would be gratifiedto the full, as they should be gone perhaps two months and would passthrough regions wholly unknown. Moreover he had worked hard for a longtime and he felt that his holiday was fully earned; hence there was noflaw in his hopes.

  It required but a few minutes to pass through the cleared ground, thenew fields, and reach the forest and as they looked back they saw what aslight impression they had yet made on the wilderness. Wareville was buta bit of human life, nothing more than an islet of civilization in a seaof forest.

  Five minutes more of walking among the trees, and then both Warevilleand the newly opened country around it were shut out. They saw only thespire of smoke that had been a beacon once to Henry and Paul, risinghigh up, until it trailed off to the west with the wind, where it laylike a whiplash across the sky. This, too, was soon lost as theytraveled deeper into the forest, and then they were alone in thewilderness, but without fear.

  "When we were able to live here without arms or ammunition it's notlikely that we'll suffer, now is it?" said Paul to Henry.

  "Suffer!" exclaimed Henry. "It's a journey that I couldn't be hired tomiss."

  "It ought to be enjoyable," said Mr. Pennypacker; "that is, if ourrelatives don't find it necessary to send into the Northwest, and try tobuy back our scalps from the Indian tribes."

  But the schoolmaster was not serious. He had little fear of Indians inthe western part of Kentucky, where they seldom ranged, but he thoughtit wise to put a slight restraint upon the exuberance of youth.

  They camped that night about fifteen miles from Wareville under theshadow of a great, overhanging rock, where they cooked some squirrelsthat the shiftless one shot, in a tall tree. The schoolmaster upon thisoccasion constituted himself cook.

  "There is a popular belief," he said when he asserted his place, "that aman of books is of no practical use in the world. I hereby intend togive a living demonstration to the contrary."

  Ross built the fire, and while the schoolmaster set himself to his task,Henry and Paul took their fish hooks and lines and went down to thecreek that flowed near. It was so easy to catch perch and other fishthat there was no sport in it, and as soon as they had enough for supperand breakfast they went back to the fire where the tempting odors thatarose indicated the truth of the schoolmaster's assertion. The squirrelswere done to a turn, and no doubt of his ability remained.

  Supper over, they made themselves beds of boughs under the shadow of therock, while the horses were tethered near. They sank into dreamlesssleep, and it was the schoolmaster who awakened Paul and Henry the nextmorning.

  They entered that day a forest of extraordinary grandeur, almost clearof undergrowth and with illimitable rows of mighty oak and beech trees.As they passed through, it was like walking under the lofty roof of animmense cathedral. The large masses of foliage met overhead and shut outthe sun, making the space beneath dim and shadowy, and sometimes itseemed to the explorers that an echo of their own footsteps came back tothem.

  Henry noted the trees, particularly the beeches which here grow to finerproportions than anywhere else in the world, and said he was glad thathe did not have to cut them down and clear the ground, for the
use ofthe plow.

  After they passed out of this great forest they entered the wideststretch of open country they had yet seen in Kentucky, though here andthere they came upon patches of bushes.

  "I think this must have been burned off by successive forest fires,"said Ross, "Maybe hunting parties of Indians put the torch to it inorder to drive the game."

  Certainly these prairies now contained an abundance of animal life. Thegrass was fresh, green and thick everywhere, and from a hill theexplorers saw buffalo, elk, and common deer grazing or browsing on thebushes.

  As the game was so abundant Paul, the least skillful of the party insuch matters, was sent forth that evening to kill a deer and this hetriumphantly accomplished to his own great satisfaction. They againslept in peace, now under the low-hanging boughs of an oak, andcontinued the next day to the west. Thus they went on for days.

  It was an easy journey, except when they came to rivers, some of whichwere too deep for fording, but Ross had made provision for them. Perchedupon one of the horses was a skin canoe, that is, one made of stoutbuffalo hide to be held in shape by a slight framework of wood on theinside, such as they could make at any time. Two or three trips in thiswould carry themselves and all their equipment over the stream while thehorses swam behind.

  They soon found it necessary to put their improvised canoe to use asthey came to a great river flowing in a deep channel. Wild ducks flewabout its banks or swam on the dark-blue current that flowed quietly tothe north. This was the Cumberland, though nameless then to thetravelers, and its crossing was a delicate operation as any incautiousmovement might tip over the skin canoe, and, while they were all goodswimmers, the loss of their precious ammunition could not be taken asanything but a terrible misfortune.

  Traveling on to the west they came to another and still mightier river,called by the Indians, so Ross said, the Tennessee, which means in theirlanguage the Great Spoon, so named because the river bent in curves likea spoon. This river looked even wilder and more picturesque than theCumberland, and Henry, as he gazed up its stream, wondered if the whiteman would ever know all the strange regions through which it flowed.Vast swarms of wild fowl, as at the Cumberland, floated upon its watersor flew near and showed but little alarm as they passed. When theywished food it was merely to go a little distance and take it as onewalks to a cupboard for a certain dish.

  Now, the aspect of the country began to change. The hills sank. Thestreams ceased to sparkle and dash helter-skelter over the stones;instead they flowed with a deep sluggish current and always to the west.In some the water was so nearly still that they might be called lagoons.Marshes spread out for great distances, and they were thronged withmillions of wild fowl. The air grew heavier, hotter and damper.

  "We must be approaching the Mississippi," said Henry, who was quick todraw an inference from these new conditions.

  "It can't be very far," replied Ross, "because we are in low countrynow, and when we get into the lowest the Mississippi will be there."

  All were eager for a sight of the great river. Its name was full ofmagic for those who came first into the wilderness of Kentucky. Itseemed to them the limits of the inhabitable world. Beyond stretchedvague and shadowy regions, into which hunters and trappers mightpenetrate, but where no one yet dreamed of building a home. So it waswith some awe that they would stand upon the shores of this boundary,this mighty stream that divided the real from the unreal.

  But traveling was now slow. There were so many deep creeks and lagoonsto cross, and so many marshes to pass around that they could not makemany miles in a day. They camped for a while on the highest hill thatthey could find and fished and hunted. While here they built themselvesa thatch shelter, acting on Ross's advice, and they were very glad thatthey did so, as a tremendous rain fell a few days after it was finished,deluging the country and swelling all the creeks and lagoons. So theyconcluded to stay until the earth returned to comparative dryness againin the sunshine, and meanwhile their horses, which did not stand thejourney as well as their masters, could recuperate.

  Two days after they resumed the journey, they stood on the low banks ofthe Mississippi and looked at its vast yellow current flowing in amile-wide channel, and bearing upon its muddy bosom, bushes and trees,torn from slopes thousands of miles away. It was not beautiful, it wasnot even picturesque, but its size, its loneliness and its desolationgave it a somber grandeur, which all the travelers felt. It was the sameriver that had received De Soto's body many generations before, and itwas still a mystery.

  "We know where it goes to, for the sea receives them all," said Mr.Pennypacker, "but no man knows whence it comes."

  "And it would take a good long trip to find out," said Sol.

  "A trip that we haven't time to take," returned the schoolmaster.

  Henry felt a desire to make that journey, to follow the great stream,month after month, until he traced it to the last fountain and uncoveredits secret. The power that grips the explorer, that draws him on throughdanger, known and unknown, held him as he gazed.

  They followed the banks of the stream at a slow pace to the north,sweltering in the heat which seemed to come to a focus here at theconfluence of great waters, until at last they reached a wide extent oflow country overgrown with bushes and cut with a broad yellow bandcoming down from the northeast.

  "The Ohio!" said Ross.

  And so it was; it was here that the stream called by the Indians "TheBeautiful River"--though not deserving the name at this place--lostitself in the Mississippi and at the junction it seemed full as mighty ariver as the great Father of Waters himself.

  They did not stay long at the meeting of the two rivers, fearing themiasma of the marshy soil, but retreated to the hills where they wentinto camp again. Yet Ross, and Henry, and Sol crossed both the Ohio andthe Mississippi in the frail canoe for the sake of saying that they hadbeen on the farther shores. The three, leaving Paul and the schoolmasterto guard the camp, even penetrated to a considerable distance in theprairie country beyond the Ohio. Here Henry saw for the first time abuffalo herd of size. Buffaloes were common enough in Kentucky, but thecountry being mostly wooded they roamed there in small bands. North ofthe Ohio he now beheld these huge shaggy animals in thousands and henarrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd which, frightened bya pack of wolves, rushed down upon him like a storm. It was Ross whosaved him by shooting the leading bull, thus compelling them to dividewhen they came to his body, by which action they left a clear spacewhere he and Henry stood. After that Henry, as became one offast-ripening experience and judgment, grew more cautious.

  All the party were in keen enjoyment of the great journey, and felt intheir veins the thrill of the wilderness. Paul's studious face took onthe brown tan of autumn, and even the schoolmaster, a man of years wholiked the ways of civilization, saw only the pleasures of the forest andclosed his eyes to its hardships. But there was none who was caught sodeeply in the spell of the wilderness as Henry, not even Ross nor theshiftless one. There was something in the spirit of the boy thatresponded to the call of the winds through the deep woods, a harkingback to the man primeval, a love for nature and silence.

  The forest hid many things from the schoolmaster, but he knew the heartsof men, and he could read their thoughts in their eyes, and he was thefirst to notice the change in Henry or rather less a change than adeepening and strengthening of a nature that had not found until now itstrue medium. The boy did not like to hear them speak of the return, heloved his people and he would serve them always as best he could, butthey were prosperous and happy back there in Wareville and did not needhim; now the forest beckoned to him, and, speaking to him in a hundredvoices, bade him stay. When he roamed the woods, their majesty and leafysilence appealed to all his senses. The two vast still rivers threw overhim the spell of mystery, and the secret of the greater one, its hiddenorigin, tantalized him. Often he gazed northward along its yellowcurrent and wondered if he could not pierce that secret. Dimly in hismind, formed a plan to follow the yellow
stream to its source some day,and again he thrilled with the thought of great adventures and mightywanderings, where men of his race had never gone before.

  Knowledge, too, came to him with an ease and swiftness that filled withsurprise experienced foresters like Ross and Sol. The woods seemed tounfold their secrets to him. He learned the nature of all the herbs,those that might be useful to man and those that might be harmful, hewas already as skillful with a canoe as either the guide or theshiftless one, he could follow a trail like an Indian, and the habits ofthe wild animals he observed with a minute and remembering eye. All thelore of those far-away primeval ancestors suddenly reappeared in him atthe voice of the woods, and was ready for his use.

  "It will not be long until Henry is a man," said Ross one evening asthey sat before their camp fire and saw the boy approaching, a deer thathe had killed borne upon his shoulders.

  "He is a man now," said the schoolmaster with gravity and emphasis as helooked attentively at the figure of the youth carrying the deer. No oneever before had given him such an impression of strength and physicalalertness. He seemed to have grown, to have expanded visibly since theirdeparture from Wareville. The muscles of his arm stood up under theclose-fitting deerskin tunic, and the length of limb and breadth ofshoulder in the boy indicated a coming man of giant mold.

  "What a hunter and warrior he will make!" said Ross.

  "A future leader of wilderness men," said Mr. Pennypacker softly, "butthere is wild blood in those veins; he will have to be handled well."

  Henry threw down the deer and greeted them with cheerful words that camespontaneously from a joyful soul. They had built their fire, not a largeone, in an oak opening and all around the trees rose like a mightycircular wall. The red shadows of a sun that had just set lingered onthe western edge of the forest, but in the east all was black. Out ofthis vastness came the rustling sound of the wind as it moved among theautumn leaves. In the opening was a core of ruddy light and the livingforms of men, but it was only a tiny spot in the immeasurablewilderness.

  The schoolmaster and he alone felt their littleness. The autumn nightwas crisp, and from his seat on a log he held out his fingers to thewarm blaze. Now and then a yellow or red leaf caught in the light winddrifted to his feet and he gazed up half in fear at the great encirclingwall of blackness. Then he uttered silent thanks that he was with suchtrusty men as the guide and the shiftless one.

  The effect upon Henry was not the same. He had become silent while theothers talked, and he half reclined against a tree, looking at the skythat showed a dim and shadowy disk through the opening. But there wasnothing of fear in his mind. A delicious sense of peace and satisfactioncrept over him. All the voices of the night seemed familiar and good. Alizard slipped through the grass and the eye and ear of Henry alonenoticed it; neither the guide nor the shiftless one had seen or heardits passage. He measured the disk of the heavens with his glance andforetold unerringly whether it would be clear or cloudy on the morrow,and when something rustled in the woods, he knew, without looking, thatit was a hare frightened by the blaze fleeing from its covert. A tinybrook trickled at the far edge of the fire's rim, and he could tell bythe color of the waters through what kind of soil it had come.

  Paul sat down near him, and began to talk of home. Henry smiled upon himindulgently; his old relation of protector to the younger boy had grownstronger during this trip; in the forest he was his comrade's superiorby far, and Paul willingly admitted it; in such matters he sought norivalry with his friend.

  "I wonder what they are doing way down there?" said Paul, waving hishand toward the southeast. "Just think of it, Henry! they are only onelittle spot in the wilderness, and we are only another little spot wayup here! In all the hundreds of miles between, there may not be anotherwhite face!"

  "It is likely true, but what of it?" replied Henry. "The bigger thewilderness the more room in it for us to roam in. I would rather havegreat forests than great towns."

  He turned lazily and luxuriously on his side, and, gazing into the redcoals, began to see there visions of other forests and vast plains, withhimself wandering on among the trees and over the swells. His comradessaid nothing more because it was comfortable in their little camp, andthe peace of the wilds was over them all. The night was cold, but thecircling wall of trees sheltered the opening, and the fire in the centerradiated a grateful heat in which they basked. The scholar, Mr.Pennypacker, rested his face upon his hands, and he, too, was dreamingas he stared into the blaze. Paul, his blanket wrapped around him andhis head pillowed upon soft boughs, was asleep already. Ross and Soldozed.

  But Henry neither slept nor wished to do so. His gaze shifted from thered coals to the silver disk of the sky. The world seemed to him verybeautiful and very intimate. These illimitable expanses of forestconveyed to him no sense of either awe or fear. He was at home. He hadbecome for the time a being of the night, piercing the darkness with theeyes of a wild creature, and hearkening to the familiar voices aroundhim that spoke to him and to him alone. Never was sleep farther fromhim. The shifting firelight in its flickering play fell upon his faceand revealed it in all its clear young boyish strength, the firm neck,the masterful chin, the calm, resolute eyes set wide apart, the leanbig-boned fingers, lying motionless across his knees.

  Mr. Pennypacker began to nod, then he, too, wrapped himself in hisblanket, lay back and soon fell fast asleep; in a few minutes Solfollowed him to the land of real dreams, and after a brief intervalRoss, too, yielded. Henry alone was awake, drinking deep of the nightand its lonely joy.

  The silver disk of the sky turned into gray under a cloud, the darknessswept up deeper and thicker, the light of the fire waned, but the boystill leaned against the log, and upon his sensitive mind every changeof the wilderness was registered as upon the delicate surface of aplate. He glanced at his sleeping comrades and smiled. The smile was theindex to an unconscious feeling of superiority. Ross and Sol were two orthree times his age, but they slept while he watched, and not Rosshimself in all his years in the wilderness had learned many things thatcame to him by intuition.

  Hours passed and the boy was yet awake. New feelings, vague andundetermined came into his mind but through them all went the feeling ofmastery. He, though a boy, was in many respects the chief, and while heneed not assert his leadership yet a while, he could never doubt itspossession.

  The light died far down and only a few smoldering coals were left. Theblackness of the night, coming ever closer and closer, hovered over hiscompanions and hid their faces from him. The great trunks of the treesgrew shadowy and dim. Out of the darkness came a sound slight but not inharmony with the ordinary noises of the forest. His acute senses, theold inherited primitive instinct, noticed at once the jarring note. Hemoved ever so little but an extraordinary change came over his face. Theidle look of luxury and basking warmth passed away and the eyes becamealert, watchful, defiant. Every feature, every muscle was drawn, as ifhe were at the utmost tension. Almost unconsciously his figure sank downfarther against the log, until it blended perfectly with the bark andthe fallen leaves below. Only an eye of preternatural keenness couldhave separated the outline of the boy from the general scene.

  For five minutes he lay and moved not a particle. Then the discordantnote came again among the familiar sounds of the forest and he glancedat his comrades. They slept peacefully. His lip curled slightly, notwith contempt but with that unconscious feeling of superiority; theywould not have noticed, even had they been awake.

  His hands moved forward and grasped his rifle. Then he began to slipaway from the opening and into the forest, not by walking nor altogetherby crawling, but by a curious, noiseless, gliding motion, almost likethat of a serpent. Always he clung to the shadows where his shiftingbody still blended with the dark, and as he advanced other primitiveinstincts blazed up in him. He was a hunter pursuing for the first timethe highest and most dangerous game of all game and the thrill throughhis veins was so keen that he shivered slightly. His chin was projected,and his eyes wer
e two red spots in the night. All the while his comradesby the fire, even the trained foresters, slumbered in peace, no warningwhatever coming to their heavy heads.

  The boy reached the wall of the woods, and now his form was completelyswallowed up in the blackness there. He lay a while in the bushes,motionless, all his senses alert, and for the third time the jarringnote came to his ears. The maker of it was on his right, and, as hejudged, perhaps a couple of hundred yards away. He would proceed at onceto that point. It is truth to say that no thought of danger entered hismind; the thrills of the present and its chances absorbed him. It seemednatural that he should do this thing, he was merely resuming an oldlabor, discontinued for a time.

  He raised his head slightly, but even his keen eyes could see nothing inthe forest save trunks and branches, ghostly and shapeless, and theregular rustle of the wind was not broken now by the jarring note. Butthe darkness heavy and ominous, was permeated with the signs of thingsabout to happen, and heavy with danger, a danger, however, that broughtno fear to Henry for himself, only for others. A faint sighing note asof a distant bird came on the wind, and pausing, he listened intently.He knew that it was not a bird, that sound was made by human lips, andonce more a light shiver passed over his frame; it was a signal,concerning his comrades and himself, and he would turn aside the dangerfrom those old friends of his who slept by the fire, in peace andunknowing.

  He resumed his cautious passage through the undergrowth, and, theinherited instinct blossoming so suddenly into full flower, was stillhis guide. Not a sound marked his advance, the forest fell silentlybehind him, and he went on with unerring knowledge to the spot fromwhich the discordant sounds had come.

  He approached another opening among the trees, like unto that in whichhis comrades slept, and now, lying close in the undergrowth, he lookedfor the first time upon the sight which so often boded ill to his kind.The warriors were in a group, some sitting others standing, and thoughthere was no fire and the moonlight was slight he could mark theprimitive brutality of their features, the nature of the animal thatfought at all times for life showing in their eyes. They were hard,harsh and repellent in every aspect, but the boy felt for a moment asingular attraction, there was even a distant feeling of kinship as ifhe, too, could live this life and had lived it. But the feeling quicklypassed, and in its place came the thought of his comrades whom he mustsave.

  The older of the warriors talked in a low voice, saying unknown words ina harsh, guttural tongue, and Henry could guess only at their meaning.But they seemed to be awaiting a signal and presently the low thrillingnote was heard again. Then the warriors turned as if this were thecommand to do so, and came directly toward the boy who lay in thedarkest shadows of the undergrowth.

  Henry was surprised and startled but only for a moment, then theprimeval instinct came to his aid and swiftly he sank away in the bushesin front of them, as before, no sound marking his passage. He thoughtrapidly and in all his thoughts there was none of himself but as thesavior of the little party. It seemed to come to him naturally that heshould be the protector and champion.

  When he had gone about fifty yards he uttered a shout, long, swellingand full of warning. Then he turned to his right and crashed through theundergrowth, purposely making a noise that the pursuing warriors couldnot fail to hear. Ross and the others, he knew, would be arousedinstantly by his cry and would take measures of safety. Now the savageswould be likely to follow him alone, and he noted by the sounds thatthey had turned aside to do so.

  At this moment Henry Ware felt nothing but exultation that he, a boy,should prove himself a match for all the cunning of the forest-bred, andhe thought not at all of the pursuit that came so fiercely behind him.

  He ran swiftly and now directly more than a mile from the camp of hisfriends. Then the inherited instinct that had served him so well failed;it could not warn him of the deep little river that lay straight acrosshis path flowing toward the Mississippi. He came out upon its banks andwas ready to drop down in its waters, but he saw that before he couldreach the farther shore he would be a target for his pursuers. Hehesitated and was about to turn at a sharp angle, but the warriorsemerged from the forest. It was then too late.

  The savages uttered a shout of triumph, the long, ferocious, whiningnote, so terrible in its intensity and meaning, and Henry, raising hisrifle, fired at a painted breast. The next moment they were hurled uponhim in a brown mass. He felt a stunning blow upon the head, sparks flewbefore his eyes, and the world reeled away into darkness.