use was dropping
astern. The rhythm of the song quickened as the singers told of how
the king's son had aimed at the black duck but killed the white.
_"Ah fils du roi, tu es mechant,
En roulant ma boule,
Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent,
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."_
"Way wik! way wik!" commanded Me-en-gan, sharply, from the bow.
The men quickened their stroke and shot diagonally across the current
of an eddy.
"Ni-shi-shin," said Me-en-gan.
They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated
measure.
_"Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent,
En roulant ma boule,
Trois dames s'en vont les ramassant,
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."_
The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of swifter
water. The men bent to their work with stiffened elbows. Achille
Picard flashed his white teeth back at the passengers,
"Ah, mademoiselle, eet is wan long way," he panted. "C'est une longue
traverse!"
The term was evidently descriptive, but the two smiled significantly
at each other.
"So you do take _la Longue Traverse_, after all!" marvelled Virginia.
Ned Trent clasped her hand.
"We take it together," he replied.
Into the distance faded the Post. The canoe rounded a bend. It was
gone. Ahead of them lay their long journey.
THE END
BOOKS ON NATURE STUDY BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
THE KINDRED OF THE WILD. A Book of Animal Life. With illustrations by
Charles Livingston Bull.
Appeals alike to the young and to the merely youthful-hearted. Close
observation. Graphic description. We get a sense of the great wild and
its denizens. Out of the common. Vigorous and full of character. The
book is one to be enjoyed; all the more because it smacks of the
forest instead of the museum. John Burroughs says: "The volume is in
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THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD. Illustrated.
This book strikes a new note in literature. It is a realistic romance
of the folk of the forest--a romance of the alliance of peace between
a pioneer's daughter in the depths of the ancient wood and the wild
beasts who felt her spell and became her friends. It is not fanciful,
with talking beasts; nor is it merely an exquisite idyl of the beasts
themselves. It is an actual romance, in
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