o their faces, and the broken water checked them badly. Nasmyth's
hands began to blister. To make it worse, there was a raw wound on one of
them, the result of a similar day's toil; and his knees chafed sore
against the branches in the craft's bottom. There was, however, no
respite--the moment they slackened their exertions they would drift to
lee--and he held on, keeping awkward stroke with Jake, while Lisle swung
the balancing paddle astern.

They kept it up for several hours, and then, toward evening, the rain
ceased and the clouds rolled aside. A wonderful yellow light shone behind
the bordering hills, and the twisted, wind-battered cedars on their
crests stood out against it in hard, fretted tracery. The wind dropped;
the short, white waves smoothed down; the water, heaving gently, gleamed
with a coppery glare, and the paddle blades seemed to splash up liquid
fire. Then the shores closed in ahead, and, landing on a shingle beach,
they made camp in the mouth of a gap among the hills. Supper was prepared
and eaten, and afterward Jake took up his rifle.

"I saw some ducks in the next bay," he explained.

He strolled out of camp, and Nasmyth smiled at Lisle.

"Except when he advised you to pole, that's about all he has said
to-day."

This was correct. The packer was a taciturn inhabitant of the wilds who
seldom indulged in an unnecessary remark. There was, however, no
moroseness about him; the man was good-humored in his quiet way, and his
usual ruminative calm was no deterrent from apparently tireless action.
For the most part, he lived alone in the impressive stillness of the
bush, where he had a few acres of partly cleared land which failed to
provide him with a living. For that reason, he periodically left his tiny
log house and packed for some survey expedition, or went down to work for
a few months at a sawmill. Capable of most determined labor, wonderfully
proficient with his hands, he asked no more from life than a little plain
food and indifferent shelter. No luxury that civilization could offer
would have tempted him to desert the wilds.

Lisle filled his pipe with leisurely content. He shared Jake's love for
the wilderness, and he found it strangely pleasant to rest in camp after
a day's persistent toil. Besides, he usually enjoyed his evening chat
with Nasmyth, for, widely different as their training and mode of life
had been, they had much in common. Then, too, there was something in the
prospect spr