alsam branches fully two feet high.
Who could have made it? he wondered, and then he remembered that Hinpoha
had gone off paddling by herself the afternoon before. She knew the
place he had picked out. He threw himself down on the fragrant couch and
began his long struggle for the victory of the spirit over the body.
Every night at sunset Uncle Teddy went over to see if he was all right
and bring him fresh water from the little sweet spring on Ellen's Isle.
The third day the Captain lay with his eyes closed most of the time and
dozed, the sounds of the wood and the lake coming to him as from afar
off. Sometimes he slept and once he dreamed he saw an Indian girl come
across the lake in a canoe, walk up to where he lay and stand looking at
him steadily for a long time. He half opened his eyes and it still
seemed to him as if there were someone there, but the face and the
figure were Hinpoha's. He opened his eyes wider and looked again, but
she had vanished, and he sank back to sleep.

Over at Ellen's Isle Hinpoha was going through the most strenuous three
days in her whole experience. If anyone thinks it is easy to refrain
from talking when one has talked all her life, let her try it, and her
respect for Hinpoha will be greatly increased. The others tried by every
means at their command to make her talk, popping questions at her
suddenly to take her off her guard, making statements in her presence
which she knew were incorrect and which she burned to correct, and in
every way making the fulfillment of her vow a difficult task. She could
not go off by herself and thus remove the temptation, for she had vowed
to go about her daily tasks as usual. By the end of the third day she
was nearly ready to burst, but through it all she managed to keep an
unruffled temper and a pleasant expression--the outward signs of a soul
at peace. There will be many readers who will maintain that Hinpoha won
the greater victory, although the Captain's exploit won him more glory
among his friends. To go off and fast has the halo of romance about it;
to cease from talking for three days sounds easy, and in the case of a
woman is apt to provoke smiles and hints that she must have talked in
her sleep to make up for it.

When Uncle Teddy went over on the third sunset he brought the Captain
home with him in the canoe. He looked just as he did when he went; not a
bit thinner. When they asked him how he could stand it he replied that
he hadn't felt hun