In the silent gloom that was almost night Pierre carried his compass in his hand, and at last, late in the afternoon, they came to a break in the timber-line, and ahead of them lay a plain, across which Radisson pointed an exultant hand.
"There's the river, Joan," he said, his voice faint and husky.

"We can camp here now and wait for the storm to pass." Under a thick clump of spruce he put up the tent, and then began gathering fire-wood.

Joan helped him.

As soon as they had boiled coffee and eaten a supper of meat and toasted biscuits, Joan went into the tent and dropped exhausted on her thick bed of balsam boughs, wrapping herself and the baby up close in the skins and blankets.

To-night she had no word for Kazan.