t the
necessity pressed. I selected a small cove, well tree-grown, and we
turned our canoes inland.

Fortunately the rain, though persistent, had been gentle, and had not
penetrated far under the heavy foliaged pines. We selected a clump of
large trees, chopped the lower branches, and scraping away the surface
layer of moss and needles found dry ground. Here we piled the cargo in
two mounds, which we hooded with tarpaulins and with our overturned
canoes. Our provisions were snug enough; it was ourselves who were in
dreary estate.

It rained all the afternoon, stopped for a half hour at sunset, when
the sky, for a few moments, showed streaks of red, then closed in for a
night's drizzle. I had built what shelter I could for the woman out of
boughs covered with sheets of paper birch and elm. I had made a
similar shelter for myself that I might not seem to discriminate too
much in favor of the Englishman, and had told the men to do the same.
But they were indolent, and stopped at chopping a few hemlock boughs,
which they laid across crotched aspens. In truth, our shelters
accomplished little against the cold and wet. Do what we could, we had
great discomfort, and morning found the rain still dripping and the sky
still unbroken gray.

And so it went for three days. The north country has such storms in
the spring, and they chill all beauty out of the woods. We could do
nothing. We kept what fire we could, regummed the seams of the canoes,
and for the rest ate, sulked, and tried to sleep. The men gambled
among themselves, and I grew weary of the click, click of their balls
and the sound of their stupid boasts and low jesting. Yet I had no
ground for stopping them, for the woman understood almost nothing of
their uncouth speech. Indeed, she was little in sight or hearing. She
stayed in her bark shelter, and I could hear her moving about, trying
to keep it neat and herself in order. In those three days I learned
one secret of her spirit. She had a natural merriment that did not
seem a matter of will power nor even of wish. It was an instinctive,
inborn content, that was perhaps partly physical, in that it enabled
her to sleep well, and so to wake with zest and courage. By night her
eyes might be dark circled and her step slow, but each morning there
was interest in her looks to see what the strange day was about to
bring. I had seen this nature in men many times; I had not thought
that it belonged to wome