For St. Pierre had come quietly and calmly, offering a hand of
friendship, generous, smiling, keeping his hurt to himself, while
he, Dave Carrigan, would have come with the murder of man in his
heart.
His eyes passed from the canoe to the raft, and from the big raft
to the hazy billows of green and golden forest that melted off
into interminable miles of distance beyond the river. He knew that
on the other side of him lay that same distance, north, east,
south, and west, vast spaces in an unpeopled world, the same green
and golden forests, ten thousand plains and rivers and lakes, a
million hiding-places where romance and tragedy might remain
forever undisturbed. The thought came to him that it would not be
difficult to slip out into that world and disappear. He almost
owed it to St. Pierre. It was the voice of Bateese in a snatch of
wild and discordant song that brought him back into grim reality.
There was, after all, that embarrassing matter of justice--and the
accursed Law!
After a little he observed that the canoe was moving faster, and
that Andre's paddle was working steadily and with force. St.
Pierre no longer sat hunched in the bow.
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