CHAPTER XXXI.
A MAN IN A BOAT.
On a very pleasant afternoon that fall, a man came down Crooked Creek in a small flat-bottomed boat.

He rowed leisurely, as if he had been rowing a long distance and felt a little tired.

In one end of the boat was a small trunk.
As this man, who had red hair, and a red face, and large red hands, pulled slowly along the creek, turning his head every now and then to see where he was going, he gradually approached the bridge that crossed the creek near "One-eyed Lewston's" cabin.

Just before he reached the bridge, he noticed what seemed to him a curious shadow running in a thin straight line across the water.

Resting on his oars, and looking up to see what there was above him to throw such a shadow, he perceived a telegraph wire stretching over the creek, and losing itself to sight in the woods on each side.
A telegraph wire was an ordinary sight to this man, but this particular wire seemed to astonish him greatly.
"What on earth is this ?" he asked out loud.