It was that mystery of the unpeopled places that he most desired,
their silence, the comradeship of spaces untrod by the feet of
man. And now, what a fool he was! Through vast distances the
forests he loved seemed to whisper it to him, and ahead of him the
river seemed to look back, nodding over its shoulder, beckoning to
him, telling him the word of the forests was true. It streamed on
lazily, half a mile wide, as if resting for the splashing and
roaring rush it would make among the rocks of the next rapids, and
in its indolence it sang the low and everlasting song of deep and
slowly passing water. In that song David heard the same whisper,
that he was a fool! And the lure of the wilderness shores crept in
on him and gripped him as of old. He looked at the rowers in the
two York boats, and then his eyes came back to the end of the
barge and to St. Pierre's wife.
Her little toes were tapping the floor of the deck. She, too, was
looking out over the wilderness. And again it seemed to him that
she was like a bird that wanted to fly.
"I should like to go into those hills," she said, without looking
at him. "Away off yonder!"
"And I--I should like to go with you.
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