that her heavy braid, partly undone and
falling upon the luggage behind her, shone in rich and changing colors
that fascinated Philip. He had thought that Jeanne's hair was very
dark, but he saw now that it was filled with the rare life of a Titian
head, running from red to gold and dark brown, with changing shadows
and flashes of light. It was beautiful. And Jeanne, as he looked at
her, he thought to be the most beautiful thing on earth. The movement
of her arms, the graceful, sinuous twists of her slender body as she
put her strength upon the paddle, the poise of her head, the piquant
tilt to her chin whenever she turned so that he caught a half profile
of her flushed, eager face all filled his cup of admiration to
overflowing. And he found himself wondering, suddenly, how this girl
could be a sister to Pierre Couchee. He saw in her no sign of French or
half-breed blood. Her hair was fine and soft, and waved about her ears
and where it fell loose upon the back. The color in her cheeks was as
delicate as the tints of the bakneesh flower. She had rolled up her
broad cuffs to give her greater freedom in paddling, and her arms shone
white and firm, glistening with the wet drip of the paddle. He was
marveling at her relationship to Pierre when she looked back at him,
her face aglow with exercise and the spice of the morning, and he saw
the sunlight as blue as the sky above him in her eyes. If he had not
known, he would have sworn that there was not a drop of Pierre's blood
in her veins.

"We are coming to the first rapids, M'sieur Philip," she announced. "It
is just beyond that ugly mountain of rock ahead of us, and we will have
a quarter-mile portage. It is filled with great stones and so swift
that Pierre and I nearly wrecked ourselves coming down."

It was the most that had been said since the beginning of that
wonderful hour that had come before the first gleam of sunrise, and
Philip, laying his paddle athwart the canoe, stretched himself and
yawned, as though he had just awakened.

"Poor boy," said Jeanne; and it struck him that her words were
strangely like those which Eileen might have spoken had she been there,
only an artless comradeship replaced what would have been Miss Brokaw's
tone of intimacy. She added, with genuine sympathy in her face and
voice: "You must be exhausted, M'sieur Philip. If you were Pierre I
should insist upon going ashore for a number of hours. Pierre obeys me
when we are together. He cal