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THE FOREST WAYS
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ly an old trail, it tempted him to wander along it. For miles and miles it kept its course and soon it was clear that here was the old Indian trail from the Tualitin Plains to the Columbia River at Sauvie's Island. Overgrown with moss, covered with leaves and mold, it was still the old trail that in olden times had been trodden by thousands of moccasined feet. There were no choppings or blazed trees along it, and even the roots of the trees rounded and rubbed by the clinging clasp of soft, flexible feet showed plainly that they had not been trodden or marred by the heavy foot-gear of the white man. Every foot of the location and every sinuous turn of the old highway bespoke its origin and use. It was the old and fading signature of a dead people. So dim and spectral and yet so unmistakable, it was the rising of an Indian ghost.

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