kled; he scanned
the twelve-foot canoe--it seemed small and hastily built of poor bark;
he stared at the back of Naqua and reflected how bent and rounded it
was instead of being straight and strong and supple; he glanced up and
where once there stretched green bush and small running streams now
stood things bigger than he had ever seen; he sniffed at the wind and,
without knowing what it was, caught the sharp odor of metal and
machinery. Last of all, he lifted his gaze straight into the eyes of a
man who stood staring down from the coping of the little lock.

From the blockhouse window Clark had seen him since first the canoe
approached the shore. With a curious thrill he had watched the old
chief enter the tiny chamber and float motionless--a visitant from the
past. So complete was the picture and so almost poignant the pleasure
it afforded, that, loath to mar it, he had hesitated to approach.
Never had he conceived anything so intimately appropriate as this
linking of bygone days with the insistent present.

They stared at each other, Clark's keen features suffused with
interest, Shingwauk's black eyes gazing lustrous from a dark bronze
face seamed with innumerable wrinkles. His visage was noble with the
proud wisdom of the wilderness and the unnamable shadow of traditions
that went back through uncounted centuries of forest life. Clark,
recognizing it, felt strangely juvenile. Presently Shingwauk, with
some subtle intuition of who and what was the man who stood so quietly,
waved his hand. The motion took in the works, the blockhouse, the
canal, in short the entire setting.

"You?" he asked in deep, hollow tones.

Clark nodded, smiling. "Yes, me."

Shingwauk's eyes rounded a little. "Big magic," he said impressively
and relapsed into silence.

"Hungry?" asked Clark presently.

The old chief did not reply, being too moved by strange thoughts and
the rush of memory to feel anything else, but Naqua lifted a withered
head in the bow.

"Much hungry," she croaked shrilly.

Clark laughed and signaled to the blockhouse, where the Japanese cook
waited, peering from a window. Presently the latter came out carrying
a tray. His narrow eyes were expressionless as he laid it on the
masonry beside the canoe. Shingwauk glanced at him, puzzled over the
flat, oriental features for a moment, and looked away. He seemed but a
minor spirit in this great mystery. The old woman ate greedily, but
her husband had no d