red your foot?" he finished, rather unchivalrously,
chuckling in his delight at her pretty discomfiture. "No, that wouldn't
be the third, Miss Jeanne. The other scene which I shall never forget
was that on the stone pier at Churchill, when you met a beautiful girl
who was coming off the ship."

The blood leaped to Jeanne's face. Her soft lips tightened. A sudden
movement, and the bearskin slipped from her shoulders, leaving her
leaning a little forward, her eyes blazing. A dozen words had
transformed her from the child he had fancied her to a woman quivering
with some powerful emotion, her beautiful head proud and erect, her
nostrils dilating with the quickness of her breath.

"That was a mistake," she said. There was no sign of passion in her
voice. It trembled a little, but that was all. "It was a mistake,
M'sieur Philip. I thought that I knew her, and--and I was wrong.
You--you must not remember THAT!"

"I am no better than a wild beast," groaned Philip, hating himself.
"I'm the biggest idiot in the world when it comes to saying the wrong
thing, I never miss a chance. I didn't mean to say anything--that would
hurt--"

"You haven't," interrupted the girl, quickly, seeing the distress in
his face. "You haven't said a thing that's wrong. Only I don't want you
to remember THAT picture. I want you to think of me as--as--I burned
the bad man's neck."

She was laughing now, though her breast was rising and falling a little
excitedly and the deep color was still in her cheeks.

"Will you?" she entreated.

"Until I die," he exclaimed.

She was fumbling under the luggage, and dragged forth a second paddle.

"I've had an easy time with you, M'sieur Philip," she said, turning so
that she was kneeling with her back to him. "Pierre makes me work.
Always I kneel here, in the bow, and paddle. I am ashamed of myself.
You have worked all night."

"And I feel as fresh as though I had slept for a week," declared
Philip, his eyes devouring the slim figure a paddle's length in front
of him.

For an hour they continued up the river, with scarcely a word between
them to break the silence. Their paddles rose and fell with a rhythmic
motion; the water rippled like low music under their canoe; the spell
of the silent shores, of voiceless beauty, of the wilderness awakening
into day appealed to them both and held them quiet. The sun broke
faintly through the drawn mists behind. Its first rays lighted up
Jeanne's rumpled hair, so