asmyth said they would land, but Millicent roused herself
to countermand his instructions and eventually they reached Batley's
camp. Lisle had got up during the day and he now walked painfully down to
the water's edge to meet her. When she landed he gravely pressed her
hand.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. "We did what we could to save him."

"Oh, I know," she responded. "Nobody could doubt that."

Then Nasmyth landed with provisions and while the men ate two Indians
strode into the camp and addressed Lisle angrily. They were curing
salmon, they said, and had left a canoe on the shingle, in order to avoid
a portage when returning, and they had gone in another craft to set some
fish-traps in a lower rapid. To their surprise they had afterward seen
their canoe drifting down-stream full of water and badly damaged, and
they had set off at once to discover who was responsible.

Lisle offered them some silver currency, and after a little chaffering
they departed satisfied.

"Now we know how the canoe came to be lying where Gladwyne found her," he
said to Nasmyth.

Then he sought Millicent.

"I think," he told her gently, "we had better go on--to stay here would
be painful." He hesitated. "I'll leave Crestwick and an experienced
river-Jack packer to investigate. If you would rather, I'll stay with
them, though I'm afraid I can't get about much."

"Thank you," she replied in a voice which had a break in it. "You must
come with us; you don't look fit to stand."

Running the rapid, they slid away down-river, and once more Millicent sat
very still, thinking confused thoughts, until at last they made camp for
the night and she crept away to the shelter of her tent. A day or two
later Crestwick and the packer overtook them, having discovered nothing;
and then the party was animated by a strong desire to escape from the
river and reach the trail to the settlements as soon as possible. Further
search for Gladwyne was useless; the flood had swept him away and no one
would ever know where his bones lay. He had set out on his longest and
most mysterious journey, leaving only two women to mourn him, and of
these one, who had tried to love him out of duty, would by and by forget.

On the evening before they left the river, Lisle stood with Millicent
looking back up the long reach they had descended. They had reached the
taller timber, and on one bank black firs, climbing the hillside, stood
out against the fading light with a gauz