d over he
soused. John, peering down as the swirl cleared, saw only a
red-brown back heaving below; and as the seconds dragged by, and the
back appeared to heave more and more faintly, was plucking off his
own clothes to dive and rescue Muskingon from the rocks, when a pair
of hands shot up, holding aloft an enormous, bleeding cat-fish, and
hitched him deftly on the gaff which John hurried to lower. But the
fish had scarcely a kick left in him, Muskingon having smashed his
head against the crevices of the rock.

Indeed Barboux had this excuse for leaving Muskingon in camp by the
river--that there was always a string of fish ready before nightfall
when he and Menehwehna returned. John, stupefied through the
daylight hours, always seemed to awake with the lighting of the
camp-fire. This at any rate was the one scene he afterwards saw most
clearly, in health and in the delirium of fever--the fire; the ring
of faces; beyond the faces a sapling strung with fish like short
broad-swords reflecting the flames' glint; a stouter sapling laid
across two forked boughs, and from it a dead deer suspended, with
white filmed eyes, and the firelight warm on its dun flank; behind,
the black deep of the forest, sounded, if at all, by the cry of a
lonely wolf. These sights he recalled, with the scent of green fir
burning and the smart of it on his lashes.

But by day he went with senses lulled, having forgotten all desire of
escape or return. These five companions were all his world. Was he
a prisoner? Was Barboux his enemy? The words had no meaning.
They were all in the same boat, and "France" and "England" had become
idle names. If he considered Barboux's gun, it was as a provider of
game, or a protector against any possible foe from the woods.
But the woods kept their sinister silence.

Once, indeed, at the head of a portage, they came upon a still reach
of water with a strip of clearing on its farther bank--_bois brule_
Bateese called it; but the fire, due to lightning no doubt, must have
happened many years before, for spruces of fair growth rose behind
the alders on the swampy shore, and tall wickup plants and tussocks
of the blueberry choked the interspaces. A cool breeze blew down the
waterway, as through a funnel, from the uplands ahead, and the falls
below sang deafeningly in the _voyageurs'_ ears as they launched
their boat.

Suddenly Menehwehna touched Barboux by the elbow. His ear had caught
the crackling of