His eyes passed from the canoe to the raft, and from the big raft to the hazy billows of green and golden forest that melted off into interminable miles of distance beyond the river.  He knew that on the other side of him lay that same distance, north, east, south, and west, vast spaces in an unpeopled world, the same green and golden forests, ten thousand plains and rivers and lakes, a million hiding-places where romance and tragedy might remain forever undisturbed.  The thought came to him that it would not be difficult to slip out into that world and disappear.  He almost owed it to St. Pierre.  It was the voice of Bateese in a snatch of wild and discordant song that brought him back into grim reality.  There was, after all, that embarrassing matter of justice—­and the accursed Law!

After a little he observed that the canoe was moving faster, and that Andre’s paddle was working steadily and with force.  St. Pierre no longer sat hunched in the bow.  His head was erect, and he was waving a hand in the direction of the raft.  A figure had come from the cabin on the huge mass of floating timber.  David caught the shimmer of a woman’s dress, something white fluttering over her head, waving back at St. Pierre.  It was Marie-Anne, and he moved away from the window.

He wondered what was passing between St. Pierre and his wife in the hour that followed.  The bateau kept abreast of the raft, moving neither faster nor slower than it did, and twice he surrendered to the desire to scan the deck of the floating timbers through his binoculars.  But the cabin held St. Pierre and Marie-Anne, and he saw neither of them again until the sun was setting.  Then St. Pierre came out—­alone.

Even at that distance over the broad river he heard the booming voice of the chief of the Boulains.  Life sprang up where there had been the drowse of inactivity aboard the raft.  A dozen more of the great sweeps were swiftly manned by men who appeared suddenly from the shaded places of canvas shelters and striped tents.  A murmur of voices rose over the water, and then the murmur was broken by howls and shouts as the rivermen ran to their places at the command of St. Pierre’s voice, and as the sweeps began to flash in the setting sun, it gave way entirely to the evening chant of the Paddling Song.

David gripped himself as he listened and watched the slowly drifting glory of the world that came down to the shores of the river.  He could see St. Pierre clearly, for the bateau had worked its way nearer.  He could see the bare heads and naked arms of the rivermen at the sweeps.  The sweet breath of the forests filled his lungs, as that picture lay before him, and there came into his soul a covetousness and a yearning where before there had been humiliation and the grim urge of duty.  He could breathe the air of that world, he could look at its beauty, he could worship it—­and yet he knew that he was not a part of it as those others were a part of