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 leaned back against his pillows and covered his eyes.
In those moments his brain painted for him swiftly and vividly the things he was losing.

Tomorrow or next day he would be dead, and the river brigade would still be sweeping on--on into the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca, fighting the Death Chute, hazarding valiantly the rocks and rapids of the Grand Cascade, the whirlpools of the Devil's Mouth, the thundering roar and boiling dragon teeth of the Black Run--on to the end of the Athabasca, to the Slave, and into the Mackenzie, until the last rock-blunted nose of the outfit drank the tide-water of the Arctic Ocean.