Next afternoon the Tewksbury left for Gisborne portage again, with Ralph, Joe Mixer, and Stack for passengers. Stack had said to Ralph: "I'll just make the trip up and back on her. It's a chance for a tenderfoot like me to see the country." This seemed natural enough. Perfect amity prevailed during the trip. Stack affected a great admiration for Ralph; Joe Mixer was friendly. Ralph himself held to the role of reticent good nature that he had assumed. Privately he was a good deal bothered, in the light of the story he had told at the Fort, as to how he was going to make a getaway at the portage.

They arrived at the same time as on the previous trip, and Ralph as before was invited to spend the night in the bunkhouse.

"Thanks," he said easily; "I think I'll put up a tent. I've got the craze for sleeping out of doors."

"I'll sleep out with you," said Stack.

"The mosquitoes will eat you up," said Ralph coolly. "I've got only a one man shelter."

He pitched his tent on the edge of the river bank, across a little muskeg from Mixer and Staley's buildings. He ostentatiously went to bed at an early hour. As soon as everything was quiet he crept out, and hoisting the bundle which contained his boat to his back, started to climb the portage trail.

At two o'clock he returned. Making all the rest of his baggage into a pack, he got away again before the dawn began to break. At five he was on the shore of the lake with all his belongings. At six he had his boat set up and packed, and was setting off. All these movements were reported to Joe Mixer later.

Ralph, thrusting his paddle into the water which would eventually bear him back to Nahnya, felt like an exile coming into his own country again. The world and its business, which obtruded irritatingly on his dreams, was all behind him, and when he stepped into his boat he left his matter-of-fact self on the shore. This was Nahnya's land. With the keenest satisfaction he gazed around him, letting the scene photograph itself on his brain. Ralph never forgot anything that he had once looked at squarely. Seeing the quaint islands, he smiled. "Nature's shop-window," he thought, "setting out her spring line."

Entering the little river the reeds and the lily pads presented familiar faces, and every bend recalled the previous journey, evoking the presence of Nahnya so strongly that he had an actual physical consciousness of her sitting behind him, seeing all that he saw. He played with the idea, forbearing to turn his head that he might not dispel the comforting illusion.

He had intended stopping at each place where they had spelled on the first journey, but this he found was impracticable, no matter how hard he worked. His tubby craft could never make the headway of the slender dugout, and his paddle lacked the skill of Nahnya's. In the rapids he was soon in trouble, but here the elastic sides of his coracle proved an advantage. She bounced off the rounded boulders without taking any harm. When she ran high and dry it was no great matter to step out into the shallow stream and guide her back to the channel.

Though he paddled until near dark he had to go ashore several miles short of their first camping-place. It was on a grassy point in the middle of a quiet reach of the river that he chose to spend his first night alone in the silence. Solitude, Silence, and Darkness, older than all created things, are terrific to us newest creatures with nervous systems. Very few of us know them really. In an inhabited land at any hour of any season there is no such thing as silence. Ralph sat beside his fire thrilling in the presence of the ancient sisters. He was weighed down, overwhelmed, intimidated. He felt as if he and his little fire existed like an island in an infinite void.

All this was changed by the cheery sun. He continued his journey downstream joyfully. These two days that he spent entirely cut off from his kind ever afterward lingered in Ralph's mind with a flavour distinct from all the other days of his life. Away from all the distracting business of life, nor tugged opposing ways by human associations, it was as if he had come face to face with his own self for the first time. It seemed as if the fetters of the flesh were a little loosened, enabling him to feel more keenly, and to think with a greater lucidity.

This increased sensibility was for evil as well as good. While the river seemed even lovelier, if possible, than upon the previous journey, side by side with the pleasure he had in it, a premonition of evil entered Ralph's breast. "Something is going to happen," a voice whispered to him. He sought to laugh it away, but it stuck. He could not but remember the stories that are told in the North of how men living alone in the woods become gifted with a prescience of what is to come.

With a vague feeling that escape from the danger lay ahead, he paddled until ten o'clock that night. Darkness was then falling, and his weary arms could scarcely lift the paddle. He camped on the river in the spot where they had dined on the second day of the other journey. He fell asleep with the premonition like a cold hand on his breast.

"An instant later a long dugout swept into view, with four men in it"
"An instant later a long dugout swept into view, with four men in it"

In the morning it awakened him all of a piece. He abruptly sat up to listen. There was no sound. "What is the matter with me?" he thought wonderingly. "Something is upon you," that still voice seemed to whisper. He looked to his gun. His heart failed him a little, he was so terribly alone. Inside him he offered up an unspoken prayer that whatever was coming might come quickly, before fear of the unknown should unman him.

Hastily cooking his breakfast, he never ceased to listen; therefore he was scarcely surprised when he finally heard the most startling sound in the wilderness—human voices. An instant later a long dugout swept into view upstream with four men in it. Courage warmed Ralph's breast again; to be sure it was bad enough, but it was real.

At sight of Ralph the men in the dugout set up a shout. Arriving abreast of his camp they swung around and beached their craft below. In the bow was a white man strange to Ralph, Joe Mixer and Stack sat amidships, while the stern paddle was wielded by a handsome, muscular young half-breed. They all got out. Ralph awaited them on the top of the bank. Burly Joe approached with an anticipatory, cynical grin; little Stack kept partly behind him.

"Hello, pardner!" cried Joe.

Ralph, seeing that he actually expected to keep up the fiction of friendliness, smiled grimly. "What do you want?" he asked.

Ralph's warning of danger had served him well. Joe, seeing him cool and prepared, was completely disconcerted. "What do I want?" he repeated, falling back with a scowl. "That's a hell of a nice good-morning to hand out to a man!"

"What were you looking for?" asked Ralph, "an address of welcome?"

Joe turned purple, and shook his fist. "I'll show you!" he cried.

Little Stack stepped from behind Joe. Physical terror gave his face a greenish cast, but his chagrin at seeing his careful plans about to be destroyed was stronger still. It emboldened him to put himself in front of Joe. "Wait!" he implored. "You mustn't quarrel! Let me explain!"

Joe turned aside with a muttered oath.

A fawning note crept into Stack's voice. "We've taken the Doctor by surprise," he said. "He thinks we're spying on him. You can't hardly blame him."

"You're a good guesser, Stack," said Ralph grimly.

"It's nothing of the kind!" cried Stack virtuously. "You must remember I told you long ago I wanted to take a trip through the wilds if I could get a chance. Mr. Mixer was willing to go, so I engaged him and these men to guide me."

"Why explain?" said Ralph. "It's nothing to me. The river is free to all."

"I didn't expect this from you," said Stack, with an aggrieved air. "I thought we were friends. What have you got against me?"

"Nothing," said Ralph; "but you're in bad company."

Joe could no longer hold himself in. His face was purple. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he cried thickly. "You stinking dude! You smooth-face poisoner! You rah-rah college boy. It makes my stomach turn to hear you lisping! What are you doing in a man's country? Go home to your pink teas and your toe-dancing!"

Ralph could not help but smile at the style of Joe's invective. The smile maddened Joe. The foulest dregs of English speech were fished up to express his feelings. The other white man laughed obsequiously. He was in Joe's pay. The half-breed pitched pebbles into the stream, handsome and unconcerned. Ralph took it all steely eyed and smiling still.

"You stand there like a little Gorramighty!" cried Joe, with a string of oaths. "What can you do against the four of us? We've got you where we want you now, and you know it! You'll be singing another tune before we're done with you!"

"Now you're talking!" cried Ralph, bright-eyed. "The truth is coming out at last!"

Stack all but wrung his hands at the turn things were taking. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" he implored.

"Ahh! shut your head," snarled Joe. "You hate him as much as me!"

Stack turned paler still, and darted a furtive look at Ralph, and cringed and tried to smile indulgently. "Don't listen to him," he said to Ralph. "You've made him mad. He don't mean what he says. It wasn't half an hour ago he said to me, 'Won't it be sport to surprise the Doctor?' There's no need for you to quarrel like this. We don't want to intrude upon your privacy. Come to our camp to supper to-night, and talk things over quiet, and shake hands on it."

Ralph preferred Joe's honest obscenity to this. He made no answer.

"Ah! come on!" said Joe. "I'm sick of your palaver!"

He pulled the smaller man back to the dugout. Stack got in, nodding and smiling over his shoulder in a comic and pitiable attempt to propitiate the grim Ralph. They pushed off. As the dugout disappeared around the first bend below, Stack actually had the effrontery to wave his hand to Ralph.

Ralph sat down to do some hard thinking. His charming dreams were rudely shattered, and like every man suddenly roused to action, he felt a little ashamed at having be............