if only to put ashore an old woman or a bag of meal, if
only to take in a barrel of potatoes or an Indian with baskets and
bead-work.

About mid-morning of the second day, at a landing not a score of miles
below the one whereat Reuben would disembark, an Indian did come aboard
with baskets and bead-work. At sight of him the old atmosphere of
expectant mystery came over Reuben as subtly as comes the desire of
sleep. He had seen this same Indian--he recognized the unchanging
face--on the banks of the Perdu one morning years before, brooding
motionless over the motionless water. Reuben began unconsciously to
divest himself of his lately gathered worldliness; his mouth softened,
his eyes grew wider and more passive, his figure fell into looser and
freer lines, his dress seemed to forget its civil trimness. When at
length he had disembarked at the old wharf under the willows, had struck
across through the hilly sheep-pastures, and had reached a slope
overlooking the amber-bright country of the Perdu, he was once more the
silently eager boy, the quaintly reasoning visionary, his spirit waiting
alert at his eyes and at his ears.

Reuben had little concern for the highways. Therefore he struck straight
across the meadows, through the pale green vetch-tangle, between the
intense orange lilies, amid the wavering blue butterflies and the warm,
indolent perfumes of the wild-parsnip. As he drew near the Perdu there
appeared the giant blue heron, dropping to his perch in mid-water. In
almost breathless expectancy Reuben stepped past a clump of red willows,
banked thick with clematis. His heart was beating quickly, and he could
hear the whisper of the blood in his veins, as he came once more in view
of the still, white water.

His gaze swept the expanse once and again, then paused, arrested by the
unwavering, significant eye of the blue heron. The next moment he was
vaguely conscious of a hand, that seemed to wave once above the water,
far over among the lilies. He smiled as he said to himself that nothing
had changed. But at this moment the blue heron, as if disturbed, rose
and winnowed reluctantly away; and Reuben's eyes, thus liberated, turned
at once to the spot where he had felt, rather than seen, the vision. As
he looked the vision came again,--a hand, and part of an arm, thrown out
sharply as if striving to grasp support, then dropping back and bearing
down the lily leaves. For an instant Reuben's form seemed to shrink and
c