There was no thought of lurking danger other than the dangers they were bred to. How should there be? Was not this Caribou River, with its spring floodings, with its summer meanderings, with its winter casing of ice, right down to the very heart of its bed, their very own highway and play ground? Did not these folk know its every vagary from the icy moods of winter, to its beneficent summer delights? How then could it hold for them the least shadow of terror on a night to be given up to a gaiety such as their lives rarely enough knew?
Yet the shadow was there, a grim, voiceless shadow, soundless as death, and as unrelenting in its pursuit. A kyak moved over the silvery bosom of the water hard behind the rear-most canoe of the revellers, driven by a brown hand which made no sound as the paddle it grasped passed to and fro, without lifting, through the gleaming water.
It was a light hide kyak, a mere shell that scarce had the weight of a thing of feathers. And the brown man driving it was its only burden, unless the long old rifle lying thrusting up from its prow could be counted. It crept through the shallows dangerously near to the river bank, and every turn in the twisting course of the silver highway was utilized as a screen from any chance glance cast backwards by those whose course it was dogging.
The shadowy pursuit went on. It went on right up to within a furlong of the final landing. For the mood of the brown man was relentless with every passion of original man stirring. But he never shortened by a yard the distance that lay between him and his quarry. And as the leading boats drew into the side, and the beacon light of a great camp fire suddenly changed the silvery tone of the night, the pursuing kyak shot into the bank far behind, and the brown man leapt ashore.
The feast was over. And what a feast it had been. There had been mountain trout, caught and prepared by the grizzled camp cook, whose atmosphere of general uncleanness emphasised his calling, and who was the only other living creature in this camp on the gravel flats. There had been baked duck, stuffed with some conglomeration of chopped “sow-belly,” the mixing of which was the cook’s most profound secret. There had been syrupy canned fruit, and canned sweet corn, and canned beans with tomato. There had been real coffee. Not the everlasting stewed tea of the trail. And then there had been canned milk full of real cream.