To the girl at the stern of Runnion's boat it seemed as if this day and night would never end. It seemed as if the procession of natural events must have ceased, that there was no longer any time, for she had been suffering for hours and hours without end, and began to wonder dreamily whether she had not skipped a day in her reckoning between the time when she first heard of the strike on her claim and this present moment. It occurred to her that she was a rich girl now in her own right, and she smiled her smile, as she reflected that the thing she had longed for without hope of had come with confusing swiftness, and had left her unhappier than ever....  
Would the day never come? She pulled the rugs up closer about her as the morning chill made her shiver. She found herself keeping mechanical count with the sound of the sweeps—they must be making good speed, she thought, and the camp must be miles behind now. Had it been earlier in the season, when the river ran full of drift, they never could have gone thus in the dark, but the water was low and the chances of collision so remote as to render blind travel safe. Even yet she could not distinguish her oarsman, except as a black bulk, for it had been a lowering night and the approaching dawn failed to break through the blanket of cloud that hung above the great valley. He was a good boatman, however, as she gathered from the tireless of his strokes. He was a silent man, too, and she was grateful for that. She snuggled down into her blanket and tried to sleep, but she only for a minute, it seemed, to find her eyes fly wide open again. So, restless and tired of her lonely vigil, she gave a premonitory cough, and said to her companion:
 
"You must be tired rowing so steadily?"
 
"Oh, I don't mind it," he replied.
 
At the sound of his voice she sat bolt upright. It couldn't be—if this were Runnion he would have spoken before! She ventured again, tremulously:
 
"Have you any idea what time it is?"
 
"About three o'clock. I fancy."
 
"Who are you?" The question came like a shot.
 
"Don't you know?"
 
"What are YOU doing here, Mr. Runnion?"
 
"I'm rowing," he answered, carelessly.
 
"Why didn't you speak?" A vague feeling of uneasiness came over her, a suspicion that all was not right, so she waited for him to explain, and when he did not, she repeated her question. "What made you keep still so long? You knew who I was?"
 
"Well, it's the first time I ever took you on a midnight row, and I wanted to enjoy it."
 
The mockery in his voice quickened her . Of a sudden the fear of being misjudged her to end this flight that had become so distasteful in a moment, preferring to face the people at the post rather than continue her journey with this man.
 
"I've changed my mind, Mr. Runnion," she said. "I don't want to go down to the Mission. I want you to take me back."
 
"Can't do it," he said; "the current is too swift."
 
"Then set me and I'll walk back. It can't be far to town."
 
"Twenty-five miles. We've been out about three hours." He kept on rowing steadily, and although the distance they had gone frightened her, she summoned her courage to say:
 
"We can make that easily enough. Come, run in to the bank."
 
He ceased rowing and let the boat drift with dragging sweeps, filled his pipe and lighted it, then took up his again and resumed his .
 
"Please do as I ask you, Mr. Runnion. I've I don't want to go any farther." He laughed, and the sound aroused her. "Put me ashore this minute!" she cried, indignantly. "What do you mean?"
 
"You've got a fierce temper, haven't you?"
 
"Will you do it or not?"
 
When he made no answer, except to continue the maddening monotony of his movements, she was seized with a rash resolve to the oars out of his hands, and made a quick motion towards him, at which he shouted:
 
"Sit down! Do you want to upset us?"
 
The craft lurched and dipped dangerously, and, realizing the of her mad impulse, she sank back on her knees.
 
"Put me ashore!"
 
"No," he said, "not till I'm ready. Now, keep your seat or we'll both drown; this ain't a ferry-boat." After a few strokes, he added, "We'll never get along together unless you tame that temper."
 
"We're not going to get along together, Mr. Runnion—only as far as the Mission. I dare say you can tolerate me until then, can you not?" She said this bitingly.
 
" told me to board the first boat for St. Michael's," he said, disregarding her , "but I've made a few plans of my own the last hour or so."
 
"St. Michael's! Mr. Stark told you—why, that's impossible! You misunderstood him. He told you to row me to the Mission. I'm going to Father Barnum's house."
 
"No, you're not, and I didn't misunderstand him. He wants to get you outside, all right, but I reckon you'd rather go as Mrs. Runnion than as the sweetheart of Ben Stark."
 
"Are you crazy?" the girl cried. "Mr. Stark offered to help me reach the Father at his Mission. I'm nothing to him, and I'm certainly not going to be anything to you. If I'd known you were going to row the boat, I should have stayed at home, because I you."
 
"You'll get over that."
 
"I'm not in the humor for jokes."
 
He rested again on his oars, and said, with deliberation:
 
"Stark 'kindly offered' did he? Well, whenever Ben Stark 'kindly' offers anything, I'm in on the play. He's had his eye on you for the last three months, and he wants you, but he slipped a cog when he gave me the oars. You needn't be afraid, though, I'm going to do the square thing by you. We'll stop in at the Mission and be married, and then we'll see whether we want to go to St. Michael's or not, though personally I'm for going back to Flambeau."
 
During the hours while he had waited for Necia to discover his identity, the man's mind had not been idle; he had to take what fortune tossed into his lap. Had she been the unknown, unnoticed half-breed of a month or two before, he would not have wasted thought upon priests or , but now that a strange fate had worked a change in her before the world, he accepted it.
 
The girl's beauty, her , the mistaken attitude of Stark urged him, and, strongest of all, he was by his , for she would be very rich, so the knowing ones said. Doubtless that was why Stark wanted her, and, being a man who acknowledged no to his kind or his Creator, Runnion determined to outwit his principal, Doret, Burrell, and all the rest. It was a chance to win much at the risk of nothing, and he was too good a gambler to let it pass.
 
With his brusque declaration Necia realized her position—that she was a weak, lonely girl, just come into womanhood, so cursed by good looks that men wanted her, so stained by birth that they would not take her honestly; realized that she was alone with a dissolute creature and beyond help, and for the first time in her life she felt the meaning of fear.
 
She saw what a and helpless thing she was; nothing about her was great save her soul, and that was immeasurably and worried. She had just lived through a grief that had made her generous, and now she gained her first knowledge of the man-animal's gross selfishness.
 
"You are absolutely daft," she said. "You can't force me to marry you."
 
"I ain't going to force you; you'll do it willingly."
 
"I'll die first. I'll call the first man we see—I'll tell Father Barnum, and he'll have you run out of the country—it would only take a word from me."
 
"If you haven't changed your mind when we get to his place, I'll run through without stopping; but there isn't another priest between there and St. Mike's, and by the time we get to the mouth of the river, I guess you'll say yes to most anything. However, I'd rather marry you at Holy Cross if you'll consent, and I'm pretty sure you will—when you think it over."
 
"We won't discuss it."
 
"You don't understand yet," he continued, slowly. "What will people say when they know you ran away with me."
 
"I'll tell them the truth."
 
"Huh! I'm too well known. No man on the river would ever have you after that."
 
"You—you—" Her voice was a-quiver with indignation and , but her lips could not frame an fit for him. He continued rowing for some time, then said:
 
"Will you marry me?"
 
"No! If this thing is ever known, Poleon will kill you—or father."
 
For a third time he rested on his oars.
 
"Now that we've come to threats, let me talk. I offered to marry you and do the square thing, but if you don't want to, I'll pass up the formality and take you for my squaw, the same as your father took Alluna. I guess you're no better than your mother, so your old man can't say much under the circumstances, and if he don't object, Poleon can't. Just remember, you're alone with me in the heart of a , and you've got to make a choice quick, because I'm going ashore and make some breakfast as soon as it's light enough to choose a landing-place. If you agree to come quietly and go through with this thing like a sensible girl, I'll do what's right, but if you don't—then I'll do what's wrong, and maybe you won't be so damned anxious to tell your friends about this trip, or spread your story up and down the river. Make up your mind before I land."
 
The water gurgled at the bow again, and the row-locks . Another hour and then another passed in silence before the girl that she no longer seemed to float through darkness, but that the river showed in muddy grayness just over the gunwale. She saw Runnion more clearly, too, and made out his hateful outlines, though for all else she they might have been miles out upon a sea, and so imperceptible was the day's approach that she could not measure the growing light. It was a dawn, and showed no glorious gleams of color. There was no rose-pink glow, no of a thousand , no final burst of gleaming gold; the night merely faded away, changing to a sickly pallor that grew to gray, and then dissolved the low-hung, distorted shadows a quarter of a mile inland on either hand into a forbidding row of unbroken forest backed by plain, , and distant hills untipped by rays. Overhead a ruin of clouds drifted; the river ran, a yellow. The whole country so far as the eye could range was unmarred by the hand of man, untracked save by the feet of the forest people.
 
She saw Runnion gazing over his shoulder in search of a shelving beach or bar, his profile showing more debased and mean than she had ever noticed it before. They rounded a bend where the left bank before the untiring teeth of the river, forming a chevaux-de-frise of leaning, fallen firs awash in the current. The short side of the curve, the one nearest them, protected a bar that made down-stream to a dagger-like point, and towards this Runnion propelled the skiff. The girl's heart sank and she felt her limbs grow cold.
 
The mind of Poleon Doret worked in straight lines. Moreover, his memory was good. Stark's statement, which so upset and the , had a somewhat different effect upon the Frenchman, for certain facts had been impressed upon his which did not with the gambler's remarks, and yet they were too dimly to afford foundation for a definite theory. What he did know was this, that he doubted. Why? Because certain of a disjointed conversation to him, a few words which he had overheard in Stark's saloon, something about a Peterborough canoe and a woman. He knew every skiff that lay along the waterfront, and of a sudden he decided to see if this one was where it had been at dusk; for there were but two modes of from Flambeau, and there was but one canoe of this type. If Necia had gone up-river on the freighter, pursuit was hopeless, for no boatman could make headway against the current; but if, on the other hand, that craft was gone—He ran out of Stark's house and down to the river-bank, then leaped to the beneath. It was just one chance, and if he was wrong, no matter; the others would leave on the next up-river steamer; whereas, if his suspicion proved a certainty, if Stark had lied to throw them off the track, and Runnion had taken her down-stream—well, Poleon wished no one to hinder him, for he would travel light.
 
The boat WAS gone! He searched the line backward, but it was not there, and his excitement grew now, likewise his haste. Still on the run, he stumbled up to the trading-post and around to the rear, where, bottom up, lay his own craft, the one he guarded jealously, a birch canoe, frail and for any but a man schooled in the ways of swift water and Indian tricks. He was very glad now that he had not told the others of his suspicions; they might have claimed the right to go, and of that he would not be cheated. He swung the shell over his shoulders, then hurried to the bank and down the steep trail like some great, misshapen turtle. He laid it carefully in the whispering current, then stripped himself with haste, for the driving call of a hot pursuit was on him, and although it was the cold, raw hours of late night, he whipped off his garments until he was bare to the middle. He seized his paddle, stepped in, then knelt amidships and pushed away. The birch-bark answered him like a living thing, leaping and dancing beneath the strokes which sprung the spruce blade and boiled the water to a , while , rising stood out upon his back and arms as they rose and fell, stretched and and straightened.
 
A half-luminous, glow was over the waters, but the banks quickly dropped away, until there was nothing to guide him but the suck of the current and the sight of the dim-set stars. His haste now became something crying that him fiercely, for he seemed to be still, and so began to mutter at the crawling stream and to complain of his thews, which did not drive him fast enough, only the sound he made was more like the of a hound in or a wolf that runs with hot close to the earth.
 
Runnion drove his Peterborough towards the shore with powerful strokes, and ran its nose up on the gravel, rose, stretched himself, and dragged it farther out, then looked down at Necia.
 
"Well, what is it, yes or no? Do you want me for a husband or for a master?" She in the stern, a pale, fearful creature, finally murmuring:
 
"You—you must give me time."
 
"Not another hour. Here's where you declare yourself; and remember, I don't care which you choose, only you'd better be sensible."
 
She cast her despairing eyes up and down the river, then at the wilderness on either shore; but it was as silent and unpeopled as if it had been created that morning. She must have time; she would , pretending to yield, and then betray him to the first comer; a promise exacted under would not be .
 
"I'll go quietly," she said, in a faint voice.
 
"I knew you'd see that I'm square. Come! Get the out of yourself while I make a pot of coffee." He held out his hand to assist her, and she accepted it, but stumbled as she rose, for she had been in one position for several hours, and her limbs were stiff. He caught her and swung her ashore; then, instead of putting her feet to the ground, he pressed her to himself roughly and kissed her. She gave a cry and fought him off, but he laughed and held her the closer.
 
"Ain't I good for one kiss? Say, this is the deuce of an engagement. Come, now—"
 
"No, no, no!" she , like a wild thing; but he crushed his lips to hers again and then let her go, whereupon she drew away from him panting, dishevelled, her eyes wide and filled with horror. She scrubbed her lips with the back of her hand, as if to his mark, while he reached into the canoe and brought an , a bundle of food, and a coffee-pot; then, still , he gathered a few sticks of driftwood and built a fire. She had a blind instinct to flee, and sought for a means of escape, but they were well out upon the bar that stretched a distance of three hundred feet to the wooded bank; on one side of the narrow spit was the scarcely moving, half-stagnant water of a tiny bay or , on the other, the swift, current at the beached canoe, while the outer end of the gravelled down to nothing and disappeared into the river. At sight of the canoe a thought struck her, but her face must have shown some sign of it, for the man chanced to look at the moment, and, seeing her expression, straightened himself, then gazed about searchingly. Without a word he stepped to the boat, and, seizing it, dragged it entirely out upon the bar, where her strength would not be equal to shoving it off quickly, and, not content with this, he made the painter fast, then went back to his fire. The eagerness died out of her face, but an instant later, when he turned to the clearer water of the eddy to fill the coffee-pot, she seized her chance and sped up the bar towards the bank. The shingle under foot and her noisy skirts betrayed her, and with an oath he followed. It was an unequal race, and he handled her with rough, strong hands when he overtook her.
 
"So! You lied to me! Well, I'm through with this foolishness. If you'll go back on your word like this you'll ' me out' before the priest, so I'll forget my promise, too, and you'll be glad of the chance to marry me."
 
"Let me go!" she panted. "I'll marry you. Yes, yes, I'll do it, only don't touch me now!"
 
He led her back to the fire, which had begun to crackle. She was so weak now that she sank upon the stones shivering.
 
"That's right! Sit down and behave while I make you something hot to drink. You're all in." After a time he continued, as he busied himself about his task: "Say, you ought to be glad to get me; I've got a lot of money, or I will have, and once you're Mrs. Runnion, nobody'll ever know about this or think of you as a squaw." He talked to her while he waited for the water to boil, his assurance robbing her of hope, for she saw he was stubborn and reckless, determined to her will as well as to conquer her body, while under his , the creed of his kind, a woman was made from the of man and for his service. He conveyed it to her plainly. He ruled horses with a hard hand, he drove his dog teams with a biting , and he mastered women with a similar lack of feeling or consideration.
 
He was still talking when the girl sprang to her feet and sent a cry out over the river, but instantly he was up and upon her, his hand over her mouth, while she tore at it, screaming the name of Poleon Doret. He silenced her to a , , and turned to see, far out on the of the great soiled river, a man in a bark canoe. The craft had just swung past the bend above, and was still a long way off—so far away, in fact, that Necia's signal had ............