From where they landed, a worn trail led up to one of the precipitous walls of rock and shut in the Big Thunder Rapids.  Everything about them was rock.  The trail was over rock, worn smooth by the countless feet of centuries—­clawed feet, naked feet, moccasined feet, the feet of white men.  It was the Great Portage, for animal as well as man.  Philip went up with the pack, and Jeanne followed behind him.  The thunder increased.  It roared in their ears until they could no longer hear their own voices.  Directly above the rapids the trail was narrow, scarcely eight feet in width, shut in on the land side by a mountain wall, on the other by the precipice.  Philip looked behind, and saw Jeanne hugging close to the wall.  Her face was white, her eyes shone with terror and awe.  He spoke to her, but she saw only the movement of his lips.  Then he put down his pack and went close to the edge of the precipice.

Sixty feet below him was the Big Thunder, a chaos of lashing foam, of slippery, black-capped rocks bobbing and grimacing amid the rushing torrents like monsters playing at hide-and-seek.  Now one rose high, as though thrust up out of chaos by giant hands; then it sank back, and milk-white foam swirled softly over the place where it had been.  There seemed to be life in the chaos—­a grim, terrible life whose voice was a thunder that never died.  For a few moments Philip stood fascinated by the scene below him.  Then he felt a touch upon his arm.  It was Jeanne.  She stood beside him quivering, dead-white, Almost daring to take the final step.  Philip caught her hands firmly in his own, and Jeanne looked over.  Then she darted back and hovered, shuddering, near the wall.

The portage was a short one, scarce two hundred yards in length, and at the upper end was a small green meadow in which river voyagers camped.  It still lacked two hours of dusk when Philip carried over the last of the luggage.

“We will not camp here,” he said to Jeanne pointing to the remains of numerous fires and remembering Pierre’s exhortation.  “It is too public, as you might say.  Besides, that noise makes me deaf.”

Jeanne shuddered.

“Let us hurry,” she said.  “I’m—­I’m afraid of that!”

Philip carried the canoe down to the river, and Jeanne followed with the bearskins.  The current was soft and sluggish, with tiny maelstroms gurgling up here and there, like air-bubbles in boiling syrup.  He only half launched the canoe, and Jeanne remained while he went for another load.  The dip, kept green by the water of a spring, was a pistol-shot from the river.  Philip looked back from the crest and saw Jeanne leaning over the canoe.  Then he descended into the meadow, whistling.  He had reached the packs when to his ears there seemed to come a sound that rose faintly above the roar of the water in the chasm.  He straightened himself and listened.

“Philip!  Philip!”

The cry came twice—­his own name, piercing, agonizing, rising above the thunder of the floods.  He heard no more, but raced up the slope of the dip.  From the crest he stared down to where Jeanne had been.  She was gone.  The canoe was gone.  A terrible fear swept upon him, and for an instant he turned faint.  Jeanne’s cry came to him again.