by something which rose against the wild dimness like a colossal blacksmith’s anvil.  It might have been Vulcan’s own forge, so strange and fabulous a thing it seemed!  The boy’s heart leaped with his pony’s leap.  His imagination spread its swift wings ere he could think; but in another instant he reminded himself.  This was not an awful apparition, but a real thing, wondrous and unaccountable enough in its reality.  It was Anvil Rock—­a great, solitary rock—­rising abruptly from the reckless loam of a level country, and lifting its single peak, rudely shaped like a blacksmith’s anvil, straight up toward the clouds.  It was already serving as a landmark in the wilderness, and must continue so to serve all that portion of Kentucky, so long as the levelling hand of man may be withheld from one of the natural wonders of the world.

Beyond Anvil Rock the night grew blacker.  When David reached the buffalo track he could no longer see even dimly, the forest closing densely in on both sides of the narrow path, and arching darkly overhead.  Instinctively he put up his hand again and touched the money in his breast pocket.  His grasp on the rifle unconsciously grew firmer, but he loosed the bridle-rein for a moment to pat the pony.  The little beast entered the shadows of the trees without a tremor; yet there were dangers therein for him no less than for his rider, and his excited breathing told that he knew this quite as well as his master.  It was so dark that neither could see the path, and the boy was trusting more to the pony than to himself, as they went swiftly forward through the still darkness of the forest.  The pony’s unshod feet made scarcely a sound on the soft, moist earth.  There had been no frost to thin the thick branches hanging low over their heads.  The few leaves which had drifted down were still unwithered, and only made the hoof-beats more soundless on the yielding earth, so that there was not a rustle at the noiseless passing of the pony and his rider.  Only a sudden gust of wind now and then sent a murmur through the dark tree-tops and gently swayed the sombre boughs.  And so they sped on, drawing nearer and nearer to the Wilderness Road, till presently the wind brought the strong odor of boiling salt water.  The woods became now still further darkened and entangled by many fallen trees which had been felled to make fuel for the furnaces, and by huge heaps of logs piled ready for burning.  Here and there were great whitening giants of the forest still standing after they had been slain, as soldiers—­death-stricken—­stand for an instant on the field of battle.  It seemed to the fanciful boy that the wind sighed most mournfully among these wan ghosts of trees, and that the dead boughs, moved by the sighing wind, smote one another with infinite sadness.