“Dat bon!” Verbaux said again, drawing a deep breath. “Ah go heet maintenant an’ dormir. To-mor’ Ah mus’ arriver Lac des Diables.” He left the brink, drew the canoe into the bushes, and felt his way along the trail in the darkness to a tumbled-down bark lean-to.
Early the following morning he went up to the falls for his canoe and lugged it down to the pool. The drafts played with the flying spume, twisting it into fantastic clouds that eddied from cliff to cliff; the black shapes of trout showed now and then as they rolled up lazily in the froth under the fall. The air dripped with its overload of moisture, and as Jules stepped in the canoe and shoved off, he brushed away the little beads of water that clung to his hair and eyebrows.
The current, now fast, then slow, carried him down-stream until noon, then the bank widened again and Verbaux passed out on another lake. The waters were unruffled and reflected the skies accurately.
“Dere comme la brigade; mabbe Ah fin’ h’out somme t’ing de Marie, Dieu l’espère!” Jules said aloud as he saw a convoy of canoes coming toward him across the lake. He waited, motionless, and his reflection grew longer and shorter in the calm waters as the canoe swung round idly, moved by the faint strength of the current that flowed into the lake behind him.
“Verbaux, mon Gar, bon Dieu, dat toi?” shouted a voice from the canoes. Jules started violently.
“Le Grand!” he whispered. “B’en, oui!” he shouted back. Then a canoe separated from the group and came on fast, the man paddling hard while the others cheered and laughed. The two canoes floated side by side and the two men grasped each other’s hands.
“Là-bas, h’all sauf!” smiled Le Grand, pointing beyond the distant mountains.
“Dieu merci!” and Jules bowed his head; Le Grand was silent. The rest came up. “Bon, toi fin’ heem, hein?” said a big voyageur laughingly to Le Grand. The latter nodded gravely.
“’Ow toi comme ici?” asked the voyageur, Maurice Lefèvrier, of Jules.
“Le facteur he sen’ moi for to go Lac Tonnerres see eef dose Assiniboines tak’ de trap’!” Verbaux answered.
Le Grand looked at him quickly, and Jules narrowed his eyes; the other understood and made no comment.
It grew late, and some one suggested stopping for the night; the canoes were grounded and their loads covered from the dew. After supper Verbaux beckoned silently to Le Grand, and the two walked out to a little bank that overlooked the water, and sat down. A soft wind surged from the lake, and overhead banks of clouds drove on; sometimes their masses split and the silver of the full moon streamed through in a white flood, only to be dammed again by the hurrying gloom. Above the two stretched spreading branches, through whose leaves the night wind blew, making them breathe tremulously. The lulling song of curling ripples overbore all other sound; even the mosquitoes bit silently.