Zept with animation. "I
wish I knew one."

Almost instantly, those on the fast-receding shore heard from the boat
the soft notes of some one in song. Under the conditions, whatever the
words and the air, they floated back as many of those left behind had
heard the old voyageur take his leave. But this song came from neither of
the weatherworn steersmen, nor from the stolid members of their
half-breed crew. Count Zept, his hat in his hand and the cool river wind
paling his flushed face, had mounted to the top of the cargo and was
singing something he had learned in far away lands. The fascinating tenor
of his voice carried far over the river.

Even out of the hidden heights on the far side of the current, the
strains of the song came back with a melancholy pathos. Perhaps the young
singer himself was moved. But to those who listened, it wafted over the
waters as for two centuries the voyageurs into the unknown north had
celebrated the setting out of the long voyage that might have no return.
None in the boat spoke to him, but as he went on, repeating the lines,
and his voice gradually dropping lower and lower, the boats, lost in the
fog and darkness, swept into the great bend, and the stragglers on shore
turned and left the river.

Although he did not realize it then, Paul Zept's impromptu tribute in
farewell marked the great turning point in his life.

Three hundred miles of dangerous water lay before the travelers and their
valuable outfit. On this part of the voyage the river ran wide and deep.
At the suggestion of the steersmen, it was at once decided to make no
landing that night but to take advantage of the easy going, as the cold
wind would soon sweep the fog away. Strongly touched by the air of Paul's
song, which the singer laughingly explained was a song without words, as
he had made it up mainly from snatches of Italian opera, the words of
which he could not recall, Norman and Roy got Paul on the rear deck and
began to prepare for the night. The assistance of one of the crew was
necessary to prepare the blankets in an expert manner. Before midnight
Colonel Howell and the three young men, snugly wrapped in their new "four
points," found no trouble in losing themselves to the world without.

Long before the sun showed itself above the high poplar-crowned hills
that lined each bank of the Athabasca, Norman and Roy had slipped out of
their blankets. It was their first view of an absolute wilderness. The
boats