Nothing eventful occurred for some time after. No more moose appeared, and beyond winging a duck or two and fishing now and then, Pierre kept his hunting instincts down. In fact, he was just then too lazy to exert himself. He felt that he had labored beyond all reason during the past summer and needed a rest. Besides, were not his wages steadily going on? If Adrian was silly enough to paint and paint and paint—all day, this old tree and that mossy stump, he was not responsible for another man’s stupidity. Not he. The food was still holding out, so let things take their course.
Suddenly, however, Adrian realized that they were wasting time. He had made sketches on everything and anything he could find and had accumulated enough birch-bark to swamp the canoe, should they strike rough water; and far more than was comfortable for him to carry over any portage. So one morning he announced his intention of leaving the wilderness and getting back to civilization.
“All right. I go with you. Show me the town, then I’ll come back.”
“Well. As you please. Only I don’t propose to pay you any longer than will take us, now by the shortest road, to Donovan’s.”
“Time enough to borrow that trouble when you see it.”
But Pierre suggested that, as Adrian wished to learn everything possible about the woods, he should now take the guidance of affairs, and that whenever things went wrong he, Pierre, could point the way. He did this because, of late, he fancied that his young employer had taken a “too top-lofty” tone in addressing him; and, in truth, Adrian’s day-dreams of coming fame and his own genius were making him feel vastly superior to the rough woodsman.
They had paddled over dead water to a point where two streams touched it, and the question rose—which way?
“That!” said Adrian, with decision, pointing to the broader and more southern of the two.
“Good enough.”
For a moment the leader fancied there was a gleam of malice in his hireling’s eye, but he considered it beneath his notice and calmly turned the canoe into the thoroughfare he had chosen. It was wonderfully smooth and delightful paddling. In all their trip they had not found so level a stream, and it was nothing but enjoyment of the scenery that Adrian felt, until it seemed to him that they had been moving a long time without arriving anywhere. “Haven’t we?” he asked.