a little nod. Then he turned and buried himself in the green balsams
that grew within fifty paces of the river. The old joy of life leaped
into him as his feet crushed in the soft moss of the shaded places
where the sun did not break through. He went on, passing through a vast
and silent cathedral of spruce and cedar so dense that the sky was
hidden, and came then to higher ground, where the evergreen was
sprinkled with birch and poplar. About him was an invisible choir of
voices, the low twittering of timid little gray-backs, the song of
hidden--warblers, the scolding of distant jays. Big-eyed moose-birds
stared at him as he passed, fluttering so close to his face that they
almost touched his shoulders in their foolish inquisitiveness. A
porcupine crashed within a dozen feet of his trail. And then he came to
a beaten path, and other paths worn deep in the cool, damp earth by the
hoofs of moose and caribou. Half a mile from the bateau he sat down on
a rotting log and filled his pipe with fresh tobacco, while he listened
to catch the subdued voice of the life in this land that he loved.

It was then that the curious feeling came over him that he was not
alone, that other eyes than those of beast and bird were watching him.
It was an impression that grew on him. He seemed to feel their stare,
seeking him out from the darkest coverts, waiting for him to shove on,
dogging him like a ghost. Within him the hound-like instincts of the
man-hunter rose swiftly to the suspicion of invisible presence.

He began to note the changes in the cries of certain birds. A hundred
yards on his right a jay, most talkative of all the forest things, was
screeching with a new note in its voice. On the other side of him, in a
dense pocket of poplar and spruce, a warbler suddenly brought its song
to a jerky end. He heard the excited Pe-wee--Pe-wee--Pe-wee of a
startled little gray-back giving warning of an unwelcome intruder near
its nest. And he rose to his feet, laughing softly as he thumbed down
the tobacco in his pipe. Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain might believe in
him, but Bateese and her wary henchmen had ways of their own of
strengthening their faith.

It was close to noon when he turned back, and he did not return by the
moose path. Deliberately he struck out a hundred yards on either side
of it, traveling where the moss grew thick and the earth was damp and
soft. And five times he found the moccasin-prints of men.

Bateese, with his sleev