"You have been good to me, Jeems," she said, a little tremble in her voice.

"You may--kiss me." Out in the beat of the rain Kent's heart choked him with song.

His soul swelled with the desire to shout forth a paean of joy and triumph at the world he was leaving this night for all time.

With the warm thrill of Marette's lips he had become the superman, and as he leaped ashore in the darkness and cut the tie-rope with a single slash of his knife, he wanted to give voice to the thing that was in him as the rivermen had chanted in the glory of their freedom the day the big brigade started north.

And he DID sing, under his laughing, sobbing breath.
With a giant's strength he sent the scow out into the bayou, and then back and forth he swung the long one-man sweep, twisting the craft riverward with the force of two pairs of arms instead of one.