"
At the open window he listened. It seemed to him that from far
over the river, where the giant raft lay, there came a faint
answer to the words of the song,
XIX
With the slow approach of the storm which was advancing over the
wilderness, Carrigan felt more poignantly the growing unrest that
was in him. He heard the last of St. Pierre's voice, and after
that the fires on the distant shore died out slowly, giving way to
utter blackness. Faintly there came to him the far-away rumbling
of thunder. The air grew heavy and thick, and there was no sound
of night-bird over the breast of the river, and out of the thick
cedar and spruce and balsam there came no cry or whisper of the
nocturnal life waiting in silence for the storm to break. In that
stillness David put out the lights in the cabin and sat close to
the window in darkness.
He was more than sleepless. Every nerve in his body demanded
action, and his brain was fired by strange thoughts until their
vividness seemed to bring him face to face with a reality that set
his blood stirring with an irresistible thrill. He believed he had
made a discovery, that St. Pierre had betrayed himself.
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