All these things pressed upon Hollister; a burden of discouragement, of sadness.  Not one of all these, himself included, but wanted happiness according to his conception of happiness.  And who and what was responsible for each one’s individual conception of what he wanted?  Not one of them had demanded existence.  Each had had existence thrust upon him.  Nature, and a thousand generations of life and love and pain, such environment in which, willy-nilly, they passed their formative years, had bestowed upon each his individual quota of character, compounded of desires, of intellect, of tendencies.  And the sum total of their actions and reactions—­what was it?  How could they have modified life, bent it purposefully to its greatest fulfilment?

Hollister tried to shake himself free of these morbid abstractions.  He was alive.  He had a long time yet to live.  He was a strong man, in whom the fire of life burned with an unquenchable flame.  He had a great many imperative requisitions to make on life’s exchequer, and while he was now sadly dubious of their being honored, either in full or in part, he must go on making them.

There was a very black hole yawning before him.  The cumulative force of events had made him once more profoundly uncertain.  All his props were breaking.  Sometimes he wondered if the personal God of the Christian orthodoxy was wreaking upon him some obscure vengeance for unknown sins.

He shook himself out of this depressing bog of reflection and went to see Archie Lawanne.  Not simply for the sake of Lawanne’s society, although he valued that for itself.  He had a purpose.

“That boat’s due to-morrow at three o’clock,” he said to Lawanne.  “Will you take my big canoe and bring Doris up the river?

“I can’t,” he forestalled the question he saw forming on Lawanne’s lips.  “I can’t meet her before that crowd—­the crew and passengers, and loggers from Carr’s.  I’m afraid to.  Not only because of myself, but because of what effect the shock of seeing me may have on her.  Remember that I’ll be like a stranger to her.  She has never seen me.  It seems absurd, but it’s true.  It’s better that she sees me the first time by herself, at home, instead of before a hundred curious eyes.  Don’t you see?”

Lawanne saw; at least, he agreed that it was better so.  And after they had talked awhile, Hollister went home.

But he was scarcely in his own dooryard before he became aware that while he might plan and arrange, so also could others; that his wife was capable of action independent of him or his plans.

He glanced down the river and saw a long Siwash dugout sweep around the curve of the Big Bend.  It straightened away and bore up the long stretch of swift water that ran by his house.  Hollister could distinguish three or four figures in it.  He could see the dripping paddles rise and fall in measured beat, the wet blades flashing in the sun.