orgies. Soon after leaving dock he
saw one of the teamsters drinking from a pint flask. Without a word he
stepped briskly forward, snatched the bottle from the man's lips, and
threw it overboard. Then he turned sharp on his heel and walked away,
without troubling himself as to how the fellow was going to take it.

The occurrence pleased the men, for it showed them they had made no
mistake. But it meant little else. The chief danger really was lest they
become too settled in the protective attitude. As they took it, they
were about, good-naturedly, to help along a worthy greenhorn. This they
considered exceedingly generous on their part, and in their own minds
they were inclined to look on Thorpe much as a grown man would look on
a child. There needed an occasion for him to prove himself bigger than
they.

Fine weather followed them up the long blue reach of Lake Huron; into
the noble breadth of the Detour Passage, past the opening through the
Thousand Islands of the Georgian Bay; into the St. Mary's River. They
were locked through after some delay on account of the grain barges from
Duluth, and at last turned their prow westward in the Big Sea Water,
beyond which lay Hiawatha's Po-ne-mah, the Land of the Hereafter.

Thorpe was about late that night, drinking in the mystic beauty of the
scene. Northern lights, pale and dim, stretched their arc across beneath
the Dipper. The air, soft as the dead leaves of spring, fanned his
cheek. By and by the moon, like a red fire at sea, lifted itself from
the waves. Thorpe made his way to the stern, beyond the square deck
house, where he intended to lean on the rail in silent contemplation of
the moon-path.

He found another before him. Phil, the little cripple, was peering into
the wonderful east, its light in his eyes. He did not look at Thorpe
when the latter approached, but seemed aware of his presence, for he
moved swiftly to give room.

"It is very beautiful; isn't it, Phil?" said Thorpe after a moment.

"It is the Heart Song of the Sea," replied the cripple in a hushed
voice.

Thorpe looked down surprised.

"Who told you that?" he asked.

But the cripple, repeating the words of a chance preacher, could explain
himself no farther. In a dim way the ready-made phrase had expressed
the smothered poetic craving of his heart,--the belief that the sea, the
sky, the woods, the men and women, you, I, all have our Heart Songs, the
Song which is most beautiful.

"The Heart