go. As long
as he lived, what had happened in the creek would live with him. He did
not deny that crying voice inside him. It was easy for his mouth to
make words. He could call himself a fool and a weakling, but those
words were purely mechanical, hollow, meaningless. The truth remained.
It was a blazing fire in his breast, a conflagration that might easily
get the best of him, a thing which he must fight and triumph over for
his own salvation. He did not think of danger for Marie-Anne, for such
a thought was inconceivable. The tragedy was one-sided. It was his own
folly, his own danger. For just as he loved Marie-Anne, so did she love
her husband, St. Pierre.

He came to the low ridge close to the river and climbed up through the
thick birches and poplars. At the top was a bald knob of sandstone,
over which the riverman had already passed. David paused there and
looked down on the broad sweep of the Athabasca.

What he saw was like a picture spread out on the great breast of the
river and the white strip of shoreline. Still a quarter of a mile
upstream, floating down slowly with the current, was a mighty raft, and
for a space his eyes took in nothing else. On the Mackenzie, the
Athabasca, the Saskatchewan, and the Peace he had seen many rafts, but
never a raft like this of St. Pierre Boulain. It was a hundred feet in
width and twice and a half times as long, and with the sun blazing down
upon it from out of a cloudless sky it looked to him like a little city
swept up from out of some archaic and savage desert land to be
transplanted to the river. It was dotted with tents and canvas
shelters. Some of these were gray, and some were white, and two or
three were striped with broad bands of yellow and red. Behind all these
was a cabin, and over this there rose a slender staff from which
floated the black and white pennant of St. Pierre. The raft was alive.
Men were running between the tents. The long rudder sweeps were
flashing in the sun. Rowers with naked arms and shoulders were
straining their muscles in four York boats that were pulling like ants
at the giant mass of timber. And to David's ears came a deep monotone
of human voices, the chanting of the men as they worked.

Nearer to him a louder response suddenly made answer to it. A dozen
steps carried him round a projecting thumb of brush, and he could see
the open shore where the bateau was tied. Marie-Anne had crossed the
strip of sand, and Bateese was helping he