breath of the air, nodding and
talking to him from the crest of every ridge, that gave to him a
strange happiness even in these hours when he knew that he was dying.

And then his eyes fell nearer to the settlement which nestled along the
edge of the shining river a quarter of a mile away. That, too, had been
the wilderness, in the days before the railroad came. The poison of
speculation was stirring, but it had not yet destroyed. Athabasca
Landing was still the door that opened and closed on the great North.
Its buildings were scattered and few, and built of logs and rough
lumber. Even now he could hear the drowsy hum of the distant sawmill
that was lazily turning out its grist. Not far away the wind-worn flag
of the British Empire was floating over a Hudson Bay Company's post
that had bartered in the trades of the North for more than a hundred
years. Through that hundred years Athabasca Landing had pulsed with the
heart-beats of strong men bred to the wilderness. Through it, working
its way by river and dog sledge from the South, had gone the precious
freight for which the farther North gave in exchange its still more
precious furs. And today, as Kent looked down upon it, he saw that same
activity as it had existed through the years of a century. A brigade of
scows, laden to their gunwales, was just sweeping out into the river
and into its current. Kent had watched the loading of them; now he saw
them drifting lazily out from the shore, their long sweeps glinting in
the sun, their crews singing wildly and fiercely their beloved Chanson
des Voyageurs as their faces turned to the adventure of the North.

In Kent's throat rose a thing which he tried to choke back, but which
broke from his lips in a low cry, almost a sob. He heard the distant
singing, wild and free as the forests themselves, and he wanted to lean
out of his window and shout a last good-by. For the brigade--a Company
brigade, the brigade that had chanted its songs up and down the water
reaches of the land for more than two hundred and fifty years--was
starting north. And he knew where it was going--north, and still
farther north; a hundred miles, five hundred, a thousand--and then
another thousand before the last of the scows unburdened itself of its
precious freight. For the lean and brown-visaged men who went with them
there would be many months of clean living and joyous thrill under the
open skies. Overwhelmed by the yearning that swept over him, Kent