"
"And what call you the distance to the nearest settlement on the
Connecticut?" demanded the other with an air so studiously indifferent as
to furnish an easy clue to the inner workings of his mind.
"Some twenty hours would bring a nimble runner to the outer habitations,
granting small time for food and rest. He that is wise, however, will take
but little of the latter, until his head be safely housed within some such
building as yon block, or until there shall stand between him and the
forest at least a goodly row of oaken pickets."
"There is no path ridden by which travellers may avoid the forest during
the darkness?"
"I know of none. He who quits Wish-Ton-Wish for the towns below, must make
his pillow of the earth, or be fain to ride as long as beast can carry."
"We have truly had experience of this necessity, journeying hither. Thou
thinkest, friend, the savages are in their resting time, and that they
wait the coming quarter of the moon?"
"To my seeming, we shall not have them sooner," returned Eben Dudley;
taking care to conceal all qualification of this opinion, if any such he
entertained, by closely locking its purport in a mental reservation.
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