es were adorned with gaudy woollen streamers. New leggings,
of holiday pattern, were intermittently visible on the bowsmen and
steersmen as they half rose to give added force to their efforts.

At first the men sang their canoe songs, but as the swift rush of
the birch-barks brought them almost to their journey's end, they
burst into wild shrieks and whoops of delight.

All at once they were close to hand. The steersman rose to throw
his entire weight on the paddle. The canoe swung abruptly for the
shore. Those in it did not relax their exertions, but continued
their vigorous strokes until within a few yards of apparent
destruction.

"Hola! hola!" they cried, thrusting their paddles straight down
into the water with a strong backward twist. The stout wood bent
and cracked. The canoe stopped short and the _voyageurs_ leaped
ashore to be swallowed up in the crowd that swarmed down upon them.

The races were about equally divided, and each acted after its
instincts--the Indian greeting his people quietly, and stalking
away to the privacy of his wigwam; the more volatile white catching
his wife or his sweetheart or his child to his arms. A swarm of
Indian women and half-grown children set about unloading the
canoes. Virginia's eyes ran over the crews of the various craft.
She recognized them all, of course, to the last Indian packer, for
in so small a community the personality and doings of even the
humblest members are well known to everyone. Long since she had
identified the _brigade_. It was of the Missinaibie, the great
river whose head-waters rise a scant hundred feet from those that
flow as many miles south into Lake Superior. It drains a wild and
rugged country whose forests cling to bowlder hills, whose streams
issue from deep-riven gorges, where for many years the big gray
wolves had gathered in unusual abundance. She knew by heart the
winter posts, although she had never seen them. She could imagine
the isolation of such a place, and the intense loneliness of the
solitary man condemned to live through the dark Northern winters,
seeing no one but the rare Indians who might come in to trade with
him for their pelts. She could appreciate the wild joy of a return
for a brief season to the company of fellow-men.

When her glance fell upon the last of the canoes, it rested with a
flash of surprise. The craft was still floating idly, its bow
barely caught against the bank. The crew had deserted, but