sight of his wounds and half
dragged and half carried him to his shack hidden away in the forest.

For six days thereafter Kent remained at old Andre's place, simply
because he had neither the strength nor the reason to move. Andre
wondered that there were no broken bones in him. But his head was
terribly hurt, and it was that hurt that for three days and three
nights made Kent hover with nerve-racking indecision between life and
death. The fourth day reason came back to him, and Boileau fed him
venison broth. The fifth day he stood up. The sixth he thanked Andre,
and said that he was ready to go.

Andre outfitted him with old clothes, gave him a supply of food and
God's blessing. And Kent returned to the Chute, giving Andre to
understand that his destination was Athabasca Landing.

Kent knew that it was not wise for him to return to the river. He knew
that it would have been better for him both in mind and body had he
gone in the opposite direction. But he no longer had in him the desire
to fight, even for himself. He followed the lines of least resistance,
and these led him back to the scene of the tragedy. His grief, when he
returned, was no longer the heartbreaking agony of that first night. It
was a deep-seated, consuming fire that had already burned him out,
heart and soul. Even caution was dead in him. He feared nothing,
avoided nothing. Had the police boat been at the Chute, he would have
revealed himself without any thought of self-preservation. A ray of
hope would have been precious medicine to him. But there was no hope.
Marette was dead. Her tender body was destroyed. And he was alone,
unfathomably and hopelessly alone.

And now, after he had reached the river again, something held him
there. From the head of the Chute to a bend in the river two miles
below, his feet wore a beaten trail. Three or four times a day he would
make the trip, and along the path he set a few snares in which he
caught rabbits for food. Each night he made his bed in a crevice among
the rocks at the foot of the Chute. At the end of a week the old Jim
Kent was dead. Even O'Connor would not have recognized him with his
shaggy growth of beard, his hollow eyes, and the sunken cheeks which
the beard failed to hide.

And the fighting spirit in him also was dead. Once or twice there
leaped up in him a sudden passion demanding vengeance upon the accursed
Law that was accountable for the death of Marette, but even this flame
snuffed itse