If she had lived--" Her hands clenched the sides of the canoe, and she looked straight away from Philip.

She seemed to force the words that came from her lips then: "When I was eighteen I went to Montreal--and lived there a year, That is all--that one year--away from--my forests--" He almost failed to hear the last words, and he made no effort to reply.

He kept his canoe nearer to Jean's, so that frequently they were running side by side.

In the quick fall of the early northern night the sun was becoming more and more of a red haze in the sky as it sank farther toward the western forests.

Josephine had changed her position, so that she now sat facing the bow of the canoe.