"Grey, Zane - Betty Zane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grey Zane)

There were times when nothing could satisfy him but the calm of the deep
woods.

One of these moods possessed him now. Courageous to a fault and daring where
daring was not always the wiser part, Isaac lacked the practical sense of the
Colonel and the cool judgment of Jonathan. Impatient of restraint, independent
in spirit, and it must be admitted, in his persistence in doing as he liked
instead of what he ought to do, he resembled Betty more than he did his
brothers.

Feeling secure in his ability to take care of himself, for he knew he was an
experienced hunter and woodsman, he resolved to take a long tramp in the
forest. This resolution was strengthened by the fact that he did not believe
what the Colonel and Jonathan had told him--that it was not improbable some of
the Wyandot braves were lurking in the vicinity, bent on killing or
recapturing him. At any rate he did not fear it.

Once in the shade of the great trees the fever of discontent left him, and,
forgetting all except the happiness of being surrounded by the silent oaks, he
penetrated creeper and deeper into the forest. The brushing of a branch
against a tree, the thud of a falling nut, the dart of a squirrel, and the
sight of a bushy tail disappearing round a limb-- all these things which
indicated that the little gray fellows were working in the tree-tops, and
which would usually have brought Isaac to a standstill, now did not seem to
interest him. At times he stooped to examine the tender shoots growing at the
foot of a sassafras tree. Then, again, he closely examined marks he found in
the soft banks of the streams.

He went on and on. Two hours of this still-hunting found him on the bank of a
shallow gully through which a brook went rippling and babbling over the mossy
green stones. The forest was dense here; rugged oaks and tall poplars grew
high over the tops of the first growth of white oaks and beeches; the wild
grapevines which coiled round the trees like gigantic serpents, spread out in
the upper branches and obscured the sun; witch-hopples and laurel bushes grew
thickly; monarchs of the forest, felled by some bygone storm, lay rotting on
the ground; and in places the wind-falls were so thick and high as to be
impenetrable.

Isaac hesitated. He realized that he had plunged far into the Black Forest.
Here it was gloomy; a dreamy quiet prevailed, that deep calm of the
wilderness, unbroken save for the distant note of the hermit-thrush, the
strange bird whose lonely cry, given at long intervals, pierced the stillness.
Although Isaac had never seen one of these birds, he was familiar with that
cry which was never heard except in the deepest woods, far from the haunts of
man.

A black squirrel ran down a tree and seeing the hunter scampered away in
alarm. Isaac knew the habits of the black squirrel, that it was a denizen of
the wildest woods and frequented only places remote from civilization. The
song of the hermit and the sight of the black squirrel caused Isaac to stop