Passing beyond them, he paused and looked back at the bateau.  On the forward deck stood Marie-Anne, and she, too, was looking at him now.  Even at that distance he saw that her face was quiet and troubled with anxiety.  She did not smile when he lifted his hat to her, but gave only a little nod.  Then he turned and buried himself in the green balsams that grew within fifty paces of the river.  The old joy of life leaped into him as his feet crushed in the soft moss of the shaded places where the sun did not break through.  He went on, passing through a vast and silent cathedral of spruce and cedar so dense that the sky was hidden, and came then to higher ground, where the evergreen was sprinkled with birch and poplar.  About him was an invisible choir of voices, the low twittering of timid little gray-backs, the song of hidden—­ warblers, the scolding of distant jays.  Big-eyed moose-birds stared at him as he passed, fluttering so close to his face that they almost touched his shoulders in their foolish inquisitiveness.  A porcupine crashed within a dozen feet of his trail.  And then he came to a beaten path, and other paths worn deep in the cool, damp earth by the hoofs of moose and caribou.  Half a mile from the bateau he sat down on a rotting log and filled his pipe with fresh tobacco, while he listened to catch the subdued voice of the life in this land that he loved.

It was then that the curious feeling came over him that he was not alone, that other eyes than those of beast and bird were watching him.  It was an impression that grew on him.  He seemed to feel their stare, seeking him out from the darkest coverts, waiting for him to shove on, dogging him like a ghost.  Within him the hound-like instincts of the man-hunter rose swiftly to the suspicion of invisible presence.

He began to note the changes in the cries of certain birds.  A hundred yards on his right a jay, most talkative of all the forest things, was screeching with a new note in its voice.  On the other side of him, in a dense pocket of poplar and spruce, a warbler suddenly brought its song to a jerky end.  He heard the excited Pe-wee—­Pe-wee—­Pe-wee of a startled little gray-back giving warning of an unwelcome intruder near its nest.  And he rose to his feet, laughing softly as he thumbed down the tobacco in his pipe.  Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain might believe in him, but Bateese and her wary henchmen had ways of their own of strengthening their faith.

It was close to noon when he turned back, and he did not return by the moose path.  Deliberately he struck out a hundred yards on either side of it, traveling where the moss grew thick and the earth was damp and soft.  And five times he found the moccasin-prints of men.

Bateese, with his sleeves up, was scrubbing the deck of the bateau when David came over the plank.

“There are moose and caribou in there, but I fear I disturbed your hunters,” said Carrigan, grinning at the half-breed.  “They are too clumsy to hunt well, so clumsy that even the birds give them away.  I am afraid we shall go without fresh meat tomorrow!”