utside the patter of rain on
the roof had ceased, and the fog-like darkness was breaking with gray
dawn.

In that dawn of the new day Kent came at last out of the cabin and
looked upon a splendid world. In his breast was the glory of a thing
new-born, and the world, like himself, was changed. Storm had passed.
The gray river lay under his eyes. Shoreward he made out the dark
outlines of the deep spruce and cedar and balsam forests. About him
there was a great stillness, broken only by the murmur of the river and
the ripple of water under the scow. Wind had gone with the black
rainclouds, and Kent, as he looked about him, saw the swift dissolution
of the last shadows of night, and the breaking in the East of a new
paradise. In the East, as the minutes passed, there came a soft and
luminous gray, and after that, swiftly, with the miracle of far
Northern dawn, a vast, low-burning fire seemed to start far beyond the
forests, tinting the sky with a delicate pink that crept higher and
higher as Kent watched it. The river, all at once, came out of its last
drifting haze of fog and night. The scow was about in the middle of the
channel. Two hundred yards on either side were thick green walls of
forest glistening fresh and cool with the wet of storm and breathing
forth the perfume which Kent was drawing deep into his lungs.

In the cabin he heard sound. Marette was up, and he was eager to have
her come out and stand with him in this glory of their first day. He
watched the smoke of the fire he had built, hardwood smoke that drifted
up white and clean into the rain-washed air.

The smell of it, like the smell of balsam and cedar, was to Kent the
aroma of life. And then he began to clean out what was left of the
water in the bottom of the scow, and as he worked he whistled. He
wanted Marette to hear that whistle. He wanted her to know that day had
brought with it no doubt for him. A great and glorious world was about
them and ahead of them. And they were safe.

As he worked, his mind became more than ever set upon the resolution to
take no chances. He paused in his whistling for a moment to laugh
softly and exultantly as he thought of the years of experience which
were his surest safeguard now. He had become almost uncannily expert in
all the finesse and trickery of his craft of hunting human game, and he
knew what the man-hunters would do and what they would not do. He had
them checkmated at the start. And, besides--with Keds