and sweating; and by the end of the day each man carried a dark
red weal on one shoulder, sunk in the flesh by the canoe's weight.
John could walk, but was powerless to help, and McQuarters had to be
lifted and carried with the baggage. Barboux confined himself to
swearing and jeering at le Chameau's naked back--_diable de torse_,
as he proclaimed it. The man was getting past endurance.

On the second day he called a halt, left le Chameau in charge of the
camp and the prisoners, and went off with the Indians in search of a
moose, whose lowing call had twice echoed through the woods during
the night and been answered by Menehwehna on his birch-horn.
The forest swallowed them, and a blessed relief fell on the camp--no
more oaths and gibes for a while, but rest and green shade and the
murmur of the rapids below.

After the noon-day meal the hunchback stretched himself luxuriously
and began to converse. He was explaining the situation with the help
of three twigs, which he laid in the form of a triangle--two long
sides and a short base.

"_Voyons_, this long one will be the Richelieu and that other the
St. Lawrence; and here"--he put his finger near the base--"here is
Montreal. The sergeant knows what he is about. Those other boats,
look you, will go around so--" He traced their course around the
apex very slowly. "Whereas _we_--!" A quick stroke of the finger
across the base filled up the sentence, and the little man smiled
triumphantly.

"I see," said John, picking up the short twig and bending it into an
arch, "we are now climbing up this side of the slope, eh? And on the
other there will likewise be a river?"

The boatman nodded. "A hard way to find, m'sieur. But have no fear.
I have travelled it."

"Assuredly I have no fear with you, M.--"

"Guyon, m'sieur--Jean Bateese Guyon. This M. Barboux is a merry
fellow--il ne peut pas se passer de ses enjouements. But I was not
born like this." And here he touched his shoulder very simply and
gravely.

"It was an accident then, M. Guyon?"

"An accident--oh, yes, be assured it was an accident." A flush
showed on the little man's cheek, and his speech on a sudden became
very rapid. "But as we were saying, I know the trail across yonder;
and my brother Dominique he knows it even better. I wish we may see
Dominique, m'sieur; there is no such _voyageur_ from Quebec up to
Michilimackinac, aye or beyond! He has been down the Cascades by
night, himself o