"Do you know that you have a wonderful sense of direction, Doris?" Hollister said. "You pointed to the highest part of that ridge as straight as if you could see it."
"I do see it," she smiled, "I mean I know where I am, and I have in my mind a very clear picture of my surroundings always, so long as I am on familiar ground."
Hollister knew this to be so, in a certain measure, on a small scale. In a room she knew Doris moved as surely and rapidly as he did himself. He had dreaded a little lest she should find herself feeling lost and helpless in this immensity of forest and hills which sometimes made even him feel a peculiar sense of insignificance. It was a relief to know that she turned to this wilderness which must be their home with the eagerness of a child throwing itself into its mother's arms. He perceived that she had indeed a clear image of the Toba in her mind. She was to give further proof of this before long.
They turned the top of the Big Bend. Here the river doubled on itself for nearly a mile and crossed from the north wall of the valley to the south. Where the channel straightened away from this loop Hollister had built his house on a little flat running back from the right-hand bank. A little less than half a mile below, Bland's cabin faced the river just where the curve of the S began. They came abreast of that now. What air currents moved along the valley floor shifted in from the sea. It wafted the smoke from Bland's stovepipe gently down on the river's shining face.
Doris sniffed.
"I smell wood smoke," she said. "Is there a fire on the flat?"
"Yes, in a cook's stove," Hollister replied. "There is a shack here."
She questioned him and he told her of the Blands,—all that he had been told, which was little enough. Doris displayed a deep interest in the fact that a woman, a young woman, was a near neighbor, as nearness goes on the British Columbia coast.
From somewhere about the house Myra Bland appeared now. To avoid the heavy current, Hollister hugged the right-hand shore so that he passed within a few feet of the bank, within speaking distance of this woman with honey-colored hair standing bareheaded in the sunshine. She took a step or two forward. For an instant Hollister thought she was about to exercise the immemorial privilege of the wild places and hail a passing stranger. But she did not call or make any sign. She stood gazing at them, and presently her husband joined her and together they watched. They were still looking when Hollister gave his last backward glance, then turned his attention to the reddish-yellow gleam of new-riven timber which marked his own dwelling. Twenty minutes later he slid the gray canoe's forefoot up on a patch of sand before his house.
"We're here," he said. "Home—such as it is—it's home."