There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English boy that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion.  His eyes were afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his lips moved after he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon the moose-horn.

He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist, though he shook with laughter.

“I’ll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water for the camp-supper, I don’t take a crank with me, who has gone mad on moose-calling,” he said.  “See here!  If we do come across moose-signs, I’ll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to call and listen for an answer—­not a second longer.  Now stop thinking about this fad, and keep your eyes open for a spring.”

But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land for travellers.  The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy, stagnant bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to which a parched man dare touch his lips.

They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes here and there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense timber-growth at the base of the mountain, longing for the sight of a spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims yearned to behold a healing well; but their search was unsuccessful.

Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout for water and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together, and determined to “cruise” to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin, hoping to find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down.  Having travelled about half a mile in this new direction, with the giant woods which they dared not enter rising like an emerald wall on the one hand, and the dreary bog-land on the other, they at last, when patience was failing, came to a change in the landscape.

The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer, firmer ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls, and having no timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks, several hundred yards apart.

“Now, this is jolly!” exclaimed Dol.  “This looks a little bit like an English lawn, only I’m afraid it’s not a likely place for moose-tracks.  But I’m glad to be out of that beastly bog.”

“Confusion to your moose-tracks,” ejaculated Cyrus, half exasperated.  “I wish we could find a well.  That would be more to the purpose.  Listen, Dol, do you hear anything?”

“I hear—­I hear—­’pon my word!  I do hear the bubbling and tinkling of water somewhere!  Where on earth is it?  Oh!  I know.  It comes from that knoll over there—­the one with the bushes.”

Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like distance from the wall of forest.