Jacqueline of Golden River

by H. M. Egbert

I was glad of the respite; but we needed to press on. It was probable that Simon would camp by our dismantled sleigh that night.

When we resumed our march the character of the country began to change. Hitherto we had been traversing an almost interminable plain, but now a ridge of jagged mountains, bare at their peaks and fringed around the base with evergreens, appeared in the distance. The sky became more leaden.

Suddenly we emerged from among the trees upon an almost barren plateau, and there again we halted for a breathing spell.

All that morning I had been looking for the trappers' huts. I had already come to the conclusion that M. Danton's instructions were to be taken by and large, for we could not now be more than twenty-five miles from the château, and it was only here that the Rivière d'Or left us, whirling in quick cascades, ice-free, among the rocks of its narrow bed, some distance east of us.

There was, of course, the possibility that the distance had been understated, and that we were only now half way. But I could not let my mind dwell upon that possibility.

I scanned the horizon on every side. It had seemed to me all that day that our road was running up-hill, but now, looking back, I was astonished to see how high we had ascended, for the whole of the vast plain across which we had been travelling lay spread out like a wrinkled table-cloth before my eyes.

In that grey light, which shortened every distance, it almost seemed that I could discern the slope of the St. Lawrence far away, and the hills, foot-spurs of the mighty Laurentian range, that bordered it. The mountains which we were approaching seemed quite near, and I knew that beyond them lay the seigniory.

I resolved to take my bearings still more accurately, and telling Jacqueline to wait for me a few minutes at the base of a hill and setting down my pack, I began the ascent alone. The climb was longer than I had anticipated. My eyes were aching from the glare of the snow. I had left my coloured glasses behind me in the tent and gone on, saying nothing, though I had realized my loss when I was only a mile or so away.

However, I hoped that the night would restore my sight, and so, dismissing the matter from my mind, I struggled up until at last I stood upon the summit of the hill.

The view from this point was a stupendous one. New peaks sprang into vision, shimmering in the sunlight. Patches of dark forest stained the whiteness of the land, and far away, like a thin, winding ribbon among the hills, I saw the valley of the Rivière d'Or.