was a low, joyous laugh. The yellow light of the candle sputtered in
their wet faces. Only dimly could he see her, but her eyes were shining.

"Your nest, little Gray Goose," he cried gently.

Her hand reached up and touched his face. "You have been good to me,
Jeems," she said, a little tremble in her voice. "You may--kiss me."

Out in the beat of the rain Kent's heart choked him with song. His soul
swelled with the desire to shout forth a paean of joy and triumph at
the world he was leaving this night for all time. With the warm thrill
of Marette's lips he had become the superman, and as he leaped ashore
in the darkness and cut the tie-rope with a single slash of his knife,
he wanted to give voice to the thing that was in him as the rivermen
had chanted in the glory of their freedom the day the big brigade
started north. And he _did_ sing, under his laughing, sobbing breath.
With a giant's strength he sent the scow out into the bayou, and then
back and forth he swung the long one-man sweep, twisting the craft
riverward with the force of two pairs of arms instead of one. Behind
the closed door of the tiny cabin was all that the world now held worth
fighting for. By turning his head he could see the faint illumination
of the candle at the window. The light--the cabin--Marette!

He laughed inanely, foolishly, like a boy. He began to hear a dull,
droning murmur, a sound that with each stroke of the sweep grew into a
more distinct, cataract-like roar. It was the river. Swollen by flood,
it was a terrifying sound. But Kent did not dread it. It was _his_ river;
it was his friend. It was the pulse and throb of life to him now. The
growing tumult of it was not menace, but the joyous thunder of many
voices calling to him, rejoicing at his coming. It grew in his ears.
Over his head the black sky opened again, and a deluge of rain fell
straight down. But above the sound of it the rush of the river drew
nearer, and still nearer. He felt the first eddying swirl of it against
the scow head, and powerful hands seemed to reach in out of the
darkness. He knew that the nose of the current had caught him and was
carrying him out on the breast of the stream. He shipped the sweep and
straightened himself, facing the utter chaos of blackness ahead. He
felt under him the slow and mighty pulse of the great flood as it swept
toward the Slave, the Mackenzie, and the Arctic. And he cried out at
last in the downpour of storm, a cry of joy, of e