y. He would
allow Danton five days more; at the week's end he must be a man, else
the experiment had failed.

The canoe scraped bottom under a wild growth of brush and outreaching
trees. The forest was stirring with the rustle and call of birds, with
the breath of the leaves and the far-away crackle and plunge of larger
animals through the undergrowth. A chipmunk, with inquisitive eyes,
sat on the root of a knotted oak, but he whisked away when Menard and
the canoemen stepped into the shallow water. Overhead, showing little
fear of the canoe and of the strangely clad animals within it,
scampered a family of red squirrels, now nibbling a nut from the
winter's store, now running and jumping from tree to tree, until only
by the shaking of the twigs and the leaf-clusters could one follow
their movements.

The maid leaned an elbow on the bale which Danton had placed at her
back, and rested her cheek on her hand. They were under the drooping
branches of an elm that stood holding to the edge of the bank. Well
out over the water sat one of the squirrels, his tail sweeping above
his head, nibbling an acorn, and looking with hasty little glances at
the canoe. She watched him, and memories came into her eyes. There had
been squirrels on her father's seignory who would take nuts from her
hand, burying them slyly under the bushes, and hurrying back for
more.

Danton came wading to the side of the canoe to help her to the bank,
but she took his hand only to steady herself while rising. Stepping
over the bracing-strips between the gunwales, she caught a swaying
branch, and swung herself lightly ashore. Back from the water the
ground rose into a low hill, covered with oak and elm and ragged
hickory trees. Here, for a space, there was little undergrowth, and
save under the heaviest of the trees the ground was green with short,
coarse grass. Danton took a hatchet from the canoe, and trimmed a fir
tree, heaping armfuls of green boughs at the foot of an oak near the
top of the slope. Over these he threw a blanket. The maid came slowly
up the hill, in response to his call, and with a weary little smile of
thanks she sank upon the fragrant couch. She rested against the tree
trunk, gazing through the nearer foliage at the rushing river.

For the two days she had been like this,--silent, shy, with sad eyes.
And Danton,--who could no more have avoided the company of such a maid
than he could have left off eating or breathing or laughing,--