flake. But in the spring, before their secret is spoken,
when they throb, and restrain the force driving through them, then have
I most comfort with them, for they live as I live."

Shadows grew on the river, and ripples were arrested and turned back to
flow up stream. There was but one way for him to cross the river, and
that was to swim. And the best time to swim was when the tide brimmed
over the current and trembled at its turn, a broad and limpid expanse
of water, cold, dangerous, repellent to the chilled plunging body; but
safer and more easily paddled through than when the current, angular as
a skeleton, sought the bay at its lowest ebb.

Fortunately tide and twilight favored the young soldier together. He
stripped himself and bound his weapons and clothes in one tight packet
on his head. At first it was easy to tread water: the salt brine upheld
him. But in the middle of the river it was wise to sink close to the
surface and carry as small a ripple as possible; for D'Aulnay's guards
might be posted nearer than he knew. The water, deceptive at its outer
edges in iridescent reflection of warm clouds, was cold as glacier
drippings in midstream. He swam with desperate calmness, guarding
himself by every stroke against cramp. The bundle oppressed him. He
would have cast it off, but dared not change by a thought of variation
the routine of his struggle. Hardy and experienced woodsman as he was,
he staggered out on the other side and lay a space in the sand, too
exhausted to move.

The tide began to recede, leaving stranded seaweed in green or brown
streaks, the color of which could be determined only by the dullness or
vividness of its shine through the dusk. As soon as he was able, the
soldier sat up, shook out his blanket and rolled himself in it. The
first large stars were trembling out. He lay and smelled gunpowder
mingling with the saltiness of the bay and the evening incense of the
earth.

There was a moose's lip in his wallet, the last spoil of his wilderness
march, taken from game shot the night before and cooked at his morning
fire. He ate it, still lying in the sand. Lights began to appear in the
direction of D'Aulnay's camp, but the fort held itself dark and close.
He thought of the grassy meadow rivulet which was always empty at low
tide, and that it might afford him some shelter in his nearer approach
to the fort. He dressed and put on his weapons, but left everything else
except the blanket lying whe