The little company assembled on the log were all children (at least in

simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance,) and the remarks they

made about the river were in keeping with the character; and so awed were

they by the grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before then, and by

their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits and that the

faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all their talk

took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued

to a low and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed:

"Chil'en, dah's sum fin a comin!"

All crowded close together and every heart beat faster.

Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger.

A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape

that jetted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce

eye of fire shot out froth behind the cape and sent a long brilliant

pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and

louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and

still wilder. A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from

its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled

with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness.

Nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with

spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the

monster like a torchlight procession.

The Gilded Age