references to steel-gray eyes and stars and angels somehow put me in
no good mood, for a reason with which most men, but few women, will
sympathize.

"Stupid ox!" He spat out the words with unspeakable impatience at my
obtuseness. "What of Miriam! Why the priest and the starry eyes and the
something inside, they all say, 'Go and get Miriam! Where's the white
woman? You lied! You let her go! Get her--get her--get her!' What of
Miriam? Pah!"

After that angry outburst, the fountains of his sorrow seemed to dry up
and he became more the old, nonchalant Louis whom I knew.

"Where is Miriam?" I asked.

He ignored my question and went on reasoning with himself.

"No more peace--no more quiet--no more sing and rollick till he get
Miriam!"

Was the fellow really delirious? The boats were disappearing from view.
I could wait no longer.

"Louis," said I, "if you have anything to say, say it quick! I can't
wait longer."

"You know I lie to you in the gorge?" and he looked straight at me.

"Certainly," I answered, "and I punished you pretty well for it twice."

"You know what that lie mean"--and he hesitated--"mean to her--to
Miriam?"

"Yes, Louis, I know."

"And you forgive all? Call all even?"

"As far as I'm concerned--yes--Louis! God Almighty alone can forgive the
suffering you have caused her."

Then Louis Laplante leaped up and, catching my hand, looked long and
steadily into my eyes.

"I go and find her," he muttered in a low, tense voice. "I follow their
trail--I keep her from suffer--I bring them all back--back here in the
bush on this river--I bring her back, or I kill Louis Laplante!"

"Old comrade--you were always generous," I began; but the words choked
in my throat.

"I know not where they are, but I find them! I know not how
soon--perhaps a year--but I bring them back! Go on with the boats," and
he dropped my hand.

"I can't leave you here," I protested.

"You come back this way," he said. "May be you find me."

Poor Louis! His tongue tripped in its old evasive ways even at the
moment of his penitence, which goes to prove--I suppose--that we are all
the sum total of the thing called habit, that even spontaneous acts are
evidences of the summed result of past years. I did not expect to find
him when I came back, and I did not. He had vanished into the woods like
the wild creature that he was; but I was placing a strange, reasonless
reliance on his promise to find Miriam.

When I caught up