Another deer, this time
obviously started up by himself, sprang from the canebrake and darted
away in the woods. He noted tracks of bear and resolved some day when
the war was over to come there hunting.
His course led him again from firm ground into a region of marshes and
lagoons, which he crossed with difficulty, arriving about an hour before
noon at a considerable river, one that would require swimming unless he
found a ford somewhere near. He was very weary from the journey through
the marsh and, sitting on a log, he scraped from his clothes a portion of
the mud they had accumulated on the way.
He was a good swimmer, but he had his arms and ammunition to keep dry,
and he did not wish to trust himself afloat on the deep current. Wading
would be far better, and, when his strength was restored, he walked up
the bank in search of a shallower place.
He came soon to a point, where the cliff was rather high, although it was
clothed in dense forest here as elsewhere, and when he reached the crest
he heard a sound like the swishing of waters. Alert and suspicious he
sank down among the trees and peered over the bank.
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