religion in the world could have held him, and deeper and deeper it had drawn him into the soul of itself, delivering up to him one by one its guarded secrets and its mysteries, opening for him page by page the book that was the greatest of all books.  And it was the wonder of it now, the fact that it was near him, about him, embracing him, glowing for him in the sunshine, whispering to him in the soft breath of the air, nodding and talking to him from the crest of every ridge, that gave to him a strange happiness even in these hours when he knew that he was dying.

And then his eyes fell nearer to the settlement which nestled along the edge of the shining river a quarter of a mile away.  That, too, had been the wilderness, in the days before the railroad came.  The poison of speculation was stirring, but it had not yet destroyed.  Athabasca Landing was still the door that opened and closed on the great North.  Its buildings were scattered and few, and built of logs and rough lumber.  Even now he could hear the drowsy hum of the distant sawmill that was lazily turning out its grist.  Not far away the wind-worn flag of the British Empire was floating over a Hudson Bay Company’s post that had bartered in the trades of the North for more than a hundred years.  Through that hundred years Athabasca Landing had pulsed with the heart-beats of strong men bred to the wilderness.  Through it, working its way by river and dog sledge from the South, had gone the precious freight for which the farther North gave in exchange its still more precious furs.  And today, as Kent looked down upon it, he saw that same activity as it had existed through the years of a century.  A brigade of scows, laden to their gunwales, was just sweeping out into the river and into its current.  Kent had watched the loading of them; now he saw them drifting lazily out from the shore, their long sweeps glinting in the sun, their crews singing wildly and fiercely their beloved Chanson des Voyageurs as their faces turned to the adventure of the North.

In Kent’s throat rose a thing which he tried to choke back, but which broke from his lips in a low cry, almost a sob.  He heard the distant singing, wild and free as the forests themselves, and he wanted to lean out of his window and shout a last good-by.  For the brigade—­a Company brigade, the brigade that had chanted its songs up and down the water reaches of the land for more than two hundred and fifty years—­was starting north.  And he knew where it was going—­north, and still farther north; a hundred miles, five hundred, a thousand—­and then another thousand before the last of the scows unburdened itself of its precious freight.  For the lean and brown-visaged men who went with them there would be many months of clean living and joyous thrill under the open skies.  Overwhelmed by the yearning that swept over him, Kent leaned back against his pillows and covered his eyes.