blind to her efforts to evade
him. He could see that it was a relief to her when they were at last in
Pierre's canoe, and headed up the river. They traveled till late in the
evening, and set up Jeanne's tent by starlight. The journey was
continued at dawn. Late the following afternoon the Little Churchill
swept through a low, woodless country, called the White Fox Barren. It
was a narrow barren and across it lay the forest and the ridge
mountains. Behind these mountains and the forest the sun was setting.
Above all else there rose out of the gathering gloom of evening a
single ridge, a towering mass of rock which caught the last glow of the
sun, and blazed like a signal-fire.

The canoe stopped. Jeanne and Pierre both gazed toward the great rock.

Then Jeanne, who was in the bow, turned her face to Philip, and the
glow of the rock itself suffused her cheeks as she pointed over the
barren.

"M'sieur Philip," she said, "there is Fort o' God!"

XVI

There was a low tremble in Jeanne's voice. The canoe swung broadside to
the slow current, and Philip looked in astonishment at the change in
Pierre. The tired half-breed had uncovered his head, and knelt with his
face turned to that last crimson glow in the sky, like one in prayer.
But his eyes were open, there was a smile on his lips, and he was
breathing quickly. Pride and joy came where there had been the lines of
grief and exhaustion. His shoulders were thrown back, his head erect,
and the fire of the distant rock reflected itself in his eyes. From him
Philip turned, so that he could look into Jeanne's face. The girl, too,
had changed. Again these two were the Pierre and Jeanne whom he had
seen that first night on the moonlit cliff. Pierre seemed no longer the
half-breed, but the prince of the rapier and broad cuffs; and Jeanne,
smiling proudly at Philip, made him an exquisite little courtesy from
her cramped seat in the bow, and said:

"M'sieur Philip, welcome to Fort o' God!"

"Thank you," he said, and stared toward the sun-capped rock.

He could see nothing but the rock, the black forests, and the desolate
barren stretching between. Fort o' God, unless it was the rock itself,
was still a mystery hidden in the gathering gloom. The canoe began
moving slowly onward, and Jeanne turned so that her eyes searched the
stream ahead. A thick wall of stunted forest shut out the barren from
their view; the stream grew narrower, and on the opposite side a barren
ri