it upon his back. He had more
than once carried the Siwash river-canoes over a portage in this
fashion, but there is a trick in it, and the birch craft was larger
and of a different shape. He felt that he could have managed it had
there been nobody to watch him, but to do it while the girl noticed
every movement with a kind of sardonic amusement was quite a different
matter. He was very hot when, after a struggle of several minutes, he
got the craft upon his shoulders; and then, after staggering a few
paces, he rammed the bow of it into a tree. The shock was too much for
him, and he went down head-foremost, with the canoe upon him, and it
felt quite heavy enough then. As the man who attempts the feat has his
hands spread out above him, that fall is, as a rule, a very awkward
one. It was a moment or two before he crawled out from under the
craft, gasping, red in face, and somewhat out of temper, and he was
not consoled by his companion's laugh.

"I am sorry you fell down, but you looked absurdly like a tortoise,"
she observed.

Weston glanced at the canoe disgustedly.

"Miss Stirling," he said, "I can't carry this thing while you stand
there watching me. Do you mind walking on into the bush?"

Ida was not in a very complaisant mood, and she glanced at him coldly.

"If my presence annoys you, I can, of course, go on," she said.

She felt that it was a little paltry when she walked on into the bush,
but her action had been dictated at least as much by curiosity as by
petulance. She fancied that she had set the man a task that was almost
beyond his strength, and, knowing that she could release him from it
at any time, she was anxious to see what he would do. She walked on
some distance, and then sat down to wait until he came up with her,
and when half an hour had slipped by and he failed to appear, she
strolled toward the edge of the wall of rock.

The river swept furiously down a long declivity just there, and the
strip of deeper water flown which one could run a canoe was on the
opposite shore. It would, she fancied, be almost impossible to reach
it from the foot of the rock on which she stood. Then, to her
astonishment, she saw Weston letting the canoe drive down before him
close beneath the rock. There was a short rope made fast to it, and he
alternately floundered almost waist-deep through the pools behind the
craft and dragged it over some thinly-covered ledge. He was very wet,
and looked savage, for his face