re he had for many an hour emptied out his
wayward heart; where he had seen his father's logs and timbers caught
in jams, hunched up on rocky ledges, held by the prong of a rock, where
man's purpose could, apparently, avail so little. Then he had watched
the black-bearded river-drivers with their pike-poles and their levers
loose the key-logs of the bunch, and the tumbling citizens of the woods
and streams toss away down the current to the wider waters below. He was
only a lad of fourteen, and the girl was only eight, but she--Junia--was
as spry and graceful a being as ever woke the echoes of a forest.

He was only fourteen, but already he had visions and dreamed dreams. His
father--John Grier--was the great lumber-king of Canada, and Junia was
the child of a lawyer who had done little with his life, but had had
great joy of his two daughters, who were dear to him beyond telling.

Carnac was one of Nature's freaks or accidents. He was physically
strong and daring, but, as a boy, mentally he lacked concentration and
decision, though very clever. He was led from thing to thing like a ray
of errant light, and he did not put a hand on himself, as old Denzil,
the partly deformed servant of Junia's home, said of him on occasion;
and Denzil was a man of parts.

Denzil was not far from the two when Junia made her appeal and
challenge. He loved the girl exceedingly, and he loved Carnac little
less, though in a different way. Denzil was French of the French, with
habit of mind and character wholly his own.

Denzil's head was squat upon his shoulders, and his long, handsome body
was also squat, because his legs were as short, proportionately, as his
mind was long. His face was covered by a well-cared-for beard of dark
brown, streaked with grey; his features were rugged and fine; and his
eyes were like two coals burning under a gnarled headland; for his
forehead, ample and full, had lines which were not lines of age, but of
concentration. In his motions he was quiet and free, yet always there
was a kind of stealthiness in his movements, which made him seem less
frank than he really was.

For a time, with salient sympathy in his eyes, he watched the two
children playing. The whisking of their forms among the trees and over
the rocks was fine, gracious, and full of life-life without alarm. At
length he saw the girl falter slightly, then make a swift deceptive
movement to avoid the boy who pursued her. The movement did not delude