he most, and he
would leave for the camp on Blind Indian Lake. As the time drew nearer
when they would be but friends and no longer comrades, Philip could not
always hide the signs of gloom which weighed upon him. He revealed
nothing in words; but now and then Jeanne had caught him when the fears
at his heart betrayed themselves in his face. Jeanne became happier as
their journey approached its end. She was alive every moment, joyous,
expectant, looking ahead to Fort o' God; and this in itself was a
bitterness to Philip, though he knew that he was a fool for allowing it
to be so. He reasoned, with dull, masculine wit, that if Jeanne cared
for him at all she would not be so anxious for their comradeship to
end. But these moods, when they came, passed quickly. And on this
afternoon of the fourth day they passed away entirely, for in an
instant there came a solution to it all. They had known each other but
four days, yet that brief time had encompassed what might not have been
in as many years. Life, smooth, uneventful, develops friendship slowly;
an hour of the unusual may lay bare a soul. Philip thought of Eileen
Brokaw, whose heart was still a closed mystery to him; who was a
stranger, in spite of the years he had known her. In four days he had
known Jeanne a lifetime; in those four days Jeanne had learned more of
him than Eileen Brokaw could ever know. So he arrived at the resolution
which made him, too, look eagerly ahead to the end of the journey. At
Fort o' God he would tell Jeanne of his love.

Jeanne was looking at him when the determination came. She saw the
gloom pass, a flush mount into his face; and when he saw her eyes upon
him he laughed, without knowing why.

"If it is so funny," she said, "please tell me."

It was a temptation, but he resisted it.

"It is a secret," he said, "which I shall keep until we reach Fort o'
God."

Jeanne turned her face up-stream to listen. A dozen times she had done
this during the last half-hour, and Philip had listened with her. At
first they had heard a distant murmur, rising as they advanced, like an
autumn wind that grows stronger each moment in the tree-tops. The
murmur was steady now, without the variations of a wind. It was the
distant roaring of the rocks and rushing floods of Big Thunder Rapids.
It grew steadily from a murmur to a moan, from a moan to rumbling
thunder. The current became so swift that Philip was compelled to use
all his strength to force the cano