"Where?" he cried. "Where?"
"Au nord," answered Marc. "Mais il descend!"
Professor Hooker stared in the direction of Marc's uplifted paddle. Was he deceived? Was the wish father to the thought? Or did he really see at an immeasurable distance upon the horizon a quickly dying trail of orange-yellow light? He rubbed his eyes—his heart beating wildly under his sportsman's suiting. But the north was black beyond the coming dawn.
Old Edouard grunted.
"Vous êtes fou!" he muttered to his nephew, and drove his paddle deep into the water.
Day broke with staccato emphasis. The sun swung up out of Europe and burned down upon the canoe with a heat so equatorial in quality that Bennie discarded both his mackintosh and his sporting jacket. All signs of human life had disappeared from the distant banks of the river and the bow of the canoe faced a gray-blue flood emerging from a wilderness of scrubby trees. A few gulls flopped their way coast-ward, and at rare intervals a salmon leaped and slashed the slow-moving surface into a boiling circle; but for the rest their surroundings were as set, as immobile, as the painted scenery of a stage, save where the current swept the scattered promontories of the shore. But they moved steadily north. So wearied was Bennie with the unaccustomed light and fresh air that by ten o'clock he felt the day must be over, although the sun had not yet reached the zenith. Unexpectedly Marc and Edouard turned the canoe quietly into a shallow, and beached her on a spit of white sand. In three minutes Edouard had a small fire snapping, and handed Bennie a cup of tea. How wonderful it seemed—a genuine elixir! And then he felt the stab of a mosquito, and putting up his hand found it blotched with blood. And the black flies came also. Soon the professor was tramping up and down, waving his handkerchief and clutching wildly at the air. Then they pushed off again.
The sun dropped westward as they turned bend after bend, disclosing ever the same view beyond. Shadows of rocks and trees began to jut across the eddies. A great heron, as big as an ostrich, or so he seemed, arose awkwardly and flapped off, trailing yards of legs behind him. Then Bennie put on first his jacket and then his mackintosh. He realized that his hands were numb. The sun was now only a foot or so above the sky line.
This time it was Marc who grunted and thrust the canoe toward the river's edge with a sideways push. It grounded on a belt of sand and they dragged it ashore. Bennie, who had been looking forward to the night with vivid apprehension, now discovered to his great happiness that the chill was keeping away the black flies. Joyfully he assisted in gathering dry sticks, driving tent pegs, and picking reindeer moss for bedding. Then as darkness fell Edouard fried eggs and bacon, and with their boots off and their stockinged feet toasting to the blaze the three men ate as becomes men who have laboured fifteen hours in the open air. They drank tin cups of scalding tea, a pint at a time, and found it good; and they smoked their pipes with their backs propped against the tree trunks and found it heaven. Then as the stars came out and the woods behind them snapped with strange noises, Edouard took his pipe from his mouth.
"It's getting cold," said he. "The marionettes will dance to-night."
Bennie heard him as if across a great, yawning gulf. Even the firelight seemed hundreds of yards away. The little professor was "all in," and he sat with his chin dropped again to his chest, until he heard Marc exclaim: