very day he lived in these days he lived
a week or maybe a month. The stillness, the utter absence of his kind,
drove his mind inward with extraordinary force. He gained a breadth of
vision and a power of penetration of which he had not dreamed. He
acquired toleration, too. Looking over the recent events in his perilous
life, he failed to find hate for anybody. Perhaps untoward events had
turned the slaver into his evil career, and at the last he had shown
some good. The French were surely fighting for what they thought was
their own, and they struck in order that they might not be struck.
Tandakora himself was the creature of his circumstances. He hated the
people of the English colonies, because they were spreading over the
land and driving away the game. He was cruel because it was the Ojibway
nature to be cruel. He would have to fight Tandakora, but it was because
conditions had made it necessary.

His absorption as a student now made him forget often that he was alone,
and there were long periods when he was not unhappy, especially when he
was trying to solve some abstruse mental problem. He regretted sometimes
that he did not have any book on mathematics, but perhaps it was as well
for him that he did not. His mind turned more to the other side of life,
to style, to poetry, to the imagination, and, now, as he was moving
along the line of least resistance, under singularly favorable
circumstances, he made extraordinary progress.

Heavy winds came and Robert liked them. He had plenty of warm clothing
and it pleased him to walk on the beach, his face whipped by the gale,
and to watch the great waves come in. It made him stronger to fight the
storm. The response to its challenge rose in his blood. It was curious,
but at such times his hope was highest. He stood up, defying the lash of
wind and rain, and felt his courage rise with the contest. Often, he ran
up and down the beach until he was soaked through, letting the fierce
waves sweep almost to his feet, then he would go back to the house,
change to dry clothing, and sleep without dreams.

There was no snow, although he longed for it, as do those who are born
in northern regions. Once, when he stood on the crest of the tallest
hill on the island, he thought he saw a few tiny flakes floating in the
air over his head, but they were swept away by the wind, as if they were
down, and he never knew whether it was an illusion or reality. But he
was glad that it had happe