. When she spoke it was in a voice
strangely subdued.

"I love this stream," she whispered. "It is full of life. On all sides
of us, in the forest, there is life. The Indians do not come here,
because they have a superstitious dread of this eternal gloom and
quiet. They call it the Spirit Stream. Even Jean is a little oppressed
by it. See how closely he keeps to us. I love it, because I love
everything that is wild. Listen! Did you hear that?"

"Mooswa," spoke Jean out of the gloom close to them.

"Yes, a moose," she said. "Here is where I saw my first moose, so many
years ago that it is time for me to forget," she laughed softly. "I
think I had just passed my fourth birthday."

"You were four on the day we started, ma Josephine," came Jean's voice
as his canoe shot slowly ahead where the stream narrowed; and then his
voice came back more faintly: "that was sixteen years ago to-day."

A shot breaking the dead stillness of the sunless world about him could
not have sent the blood rushing through Philip's veins more swiftly
than Jean's last words. For a moment he stopped his paddling and leaned
forward so that he could look close into Josephine's face.

"This is your birthday?"

"Yes. You ate my birthday cake."

She heard the strange, happy catch in his breath as he straightened
back and resumed his work. Mile after mile they wound their way through
the mysterious, subterranean-like stream, speaking seldom, and
listening intently for the breaks in the deathlike stillness that spoke
of life. Now and then they caught the ghostly flutter of owls in the
gloom, like floating spirits; back in the forest saplings snapped and
brush crashed underfoot as caribou or moose caught the man-scent; they
heard once the panting, sniffing inquiry of a bear close at hand, and
Philip reached forward for his rifle. For an instant Josephine's hand
fluttered to his own, and held it back, and the dark glow of her eyes
said: "Don't kill." Here there were no big-eyed moose-birds, none of
the mellow throat sounds of the brush sparrow, no harsh janglings of
the gaudily coloured jays. In the timber fell the soft footpads of
creatures with claw and fang, marauders and outlaws of darkness. Light,
sunshine, everything that loved the openness of day were beyond. For
more than an hour they had driven their canoes steadily on, when, as
suddenly as they had entered it, they slipped out from the cavernous
gloom into the sunlight again.

Josephine d