“Oh, I know,” she responded. “Nobody could doubt that.”
Then Nasmyth landed with provisions and while the men ate two Indians strode into the camp and addressed Lisle angrily. They were curing salmon, they said, and had left a canoe on the shingle, in order to avoid a portage when returning, and they had gone in another craft to set some fish-traps in a lower rapid. To their surprise they had afterward seen their canoe drifting down-stream full of water and badly damaged, and they had set off at once to discover who was responsible.
Lisle offered them some silver currency, and after a little chaffering they departed satisfied.
“Now we know how the canoe came to be lying where Gladwyne found her,” he said to Nasmyth.
Then he sought Millicent.
“I think,” he told her gently, “we had better go on—to stay here would be painful.” He hesitated. “I’ll leave Crestwick and an experienced river-Jack packer to investigate. If you would rather, I’ll stay with them, though I’m afraid I can’t get about much.”
“Thank you,” she replied in a voice which had a break in it. “You must come with us; you don’t look fit to stand.”
Running the rapid, they slid away down-river, and once more Millicent sat very still, thinking confused thoughts, until at last they made camp for the night and she crept away to the shelter of her tent. A day or two later Crestwick and the packer overtook them, having discovered nothing; and then the party was animated by a strong desire to escape from the river and reach the trail to the settlements as soon as possible. Further search for Gladwyne was useless; the flood had swept him away and no one would ever know where his bones lay. He had set out on his longest and most mysterious journey, leaving only two women to mourn him, and of these one, who had tried to love him out of duty, would by and by forget.
On the evening before they left the river, Lisle stood with Millicent looking back up the long reach they had descended. They had reached the taller timber, and on one bank black firs, climbing the hillside, stood out against the fading light with a gauzy mist-curtain drawn across their higher ranks. The flood slid by, glimmering dimly, smooth and green, and from out of the distance came the throbbing clamor of a rapid.
“It’s your last look,” said Lisle. “We’ll be in the bush to-morrow and I expect to hire a wagon, or at least a horse or two, in a few days. Now I’m sorry I ever brought you here. You’ll be glad to get away.”