CHAPTER VIII

THE CHATEAU OF BEAULIEU

 They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank and running along for some distance. It was clothed in dense green forest, and it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low shores.

"A big city will be built there some day," said the prophetic Paul.[B]

"Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?" exclaimed Tom Ross.

"Why, because it's such a good place. It's a high hill on a great river so well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich country behind it."

But Tom Ross shook his head.

"Seems to me, Paul," he said,"that you're bitin' off a lot more'n you can chaw. Things that are to happen a hundred years from now ain't never happenin' fur me."

But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.

On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river began a sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula. It was just about dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to run the boat into dense foliage at the margin, where not even the keenest eye could see it.

"We've got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner," said Henry,"so I'm thinking, Jim, that you'd better not light the fire on your bricks to-night."

"All right," replied Jim,"I don't mind restin'. I feel about ez lazy ez Sol Hyde looks."

But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind. His was the keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had noticed to the southward and on the other side of the peninsula a faint, dark line against the edge of the sunset. Few, even with an eye good enough to see it, would have taken it for anything but a wisp of cloud, but the physical sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it bordered upon intuition, was not deceived.

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