the smooth water
above. Calmly Sam and Dick shook the water from their poles and laid
them across the thwarts. The _swish click! swish click!_ of the paddles
resumed.

Now the river began to hurry in the ten-mile descent below the Abitibi.
Although the smooth rush of water was unbroken by the swirls of rapids,
nevertheless the current proved too strong for paddling. The voyagers
were forced again to the canoe poles, and so toiled in graceful but
strenuous labour the remaining hours of their day's journey. When
finally they drew ashore for the night, they had but just passed the
mouth of French River.

To men as skilled as they, the making of camp was a brief affair. Dick,
with his axe, cleared the space of underbrush, and sought dry wood for
fuel. The older man in the meantime hunted about until he found a dead
white-birch sapling. This he easily thrust to the ground with a strong
push of his hand. The jar burst here and there the hard envelope of the
birch bark to expose a quantity of half-powdery, decayed wood, dry as
tinder and almost as inflammable as gunpowder. Into a handful of this
Sam threw the sparks from his flint and steel. The bark itself fed
admirably the first flame. By the time Dick returned, the fire was ready
for his fuel.

They cooked tea in the copper pail, and roasted bacon on the ends of
switches. This, with bread from the Post, constituted their meal. After
supper they smoked, banked the fire with green wood, and rolled
themselves in their blankets to sleep. It was summer, so they did not
trouble to pitch their shelter.

The night died into silence. Slowly the fire worked from within through
the chinks of the green logs. Forest creatures paused to stare at it
with steady eyes, from which flashed back a blaze as intense as the
fire's own. An owl took his station near and began to call. Overhead the
brilliant aurora of the Far North palpitated in a silence that seemed
uncanny when coupled with such intensity of movement. Shadows stole here
and there like acolytes. Breezes rose and died like the passing of a
throng. The woods were peopled with uncanny influences, intangible,
unreal, yet potent with the symbolism of the unknown Presence watching
these men. The North, calm, patient, biding her time, serene in the
assurance of might, drew close to the camp in the wilderness.

By and by a little pack of wolves came and squatted on their haunches
just in the shadow. They were well fed and harmless, b