By and by hope began to stir, as it has to do in a healthy young breast. After all, matters were not as bad as before. She loved him. That being so, what a poor thing he was to give up. He sat up again. What was to prevent him from getting a proper outfit at the nearest trading-post, and returning? How thankful he was that an instinct had kept him from promising not to return. The summer was young; June had not completed her course. If Nahnya loved him, she would not stop loving him in a week or a month.
He stood up, ashamed of his weakness. He made his way back to the raft.
By this time the sun was giving a grateful warmth. Taking off his outer clothes, he spread them to dry on the stones. His pack had likewise been partly wetted, and he opened that to dry. He was curious to see what Nahnya had included in it. It was unlike her to set him adrift on an unknown river without preparing him for what was in store below. As he had half expected, the first thing he saw upon opening the bundle was a note in Nahnya's nunlike hand. It was without salutation.
"There are no rapids in this river," it ran, "before you get to Fort Cheever. Always keep in the middle of the river. You will come to Fort Cheever before the sun goes down. You will see the houses a long way. Then you must keep close to the shore so you are not carried past. The steamboat come to Fort Cheever. Good-bye. Annie Crossfox."
Ralph read and reread this prosaic communication, searching wistfully between the lines for some intimation to reassure him of her love. There was nothing of the kind. "Under the circumstances what else could she write?" he asked himself, with fine reasonableness. But his heart sunk unreasonably. He carefully stowed the letter away.
Within the bundle was a small store of rice-cakes and cold roasted moose-meat, also a little copper pot with tea and sugar. The sight of the last items encouraged Ralph. Tea was worth more than gold to them; sugar they denied themselves altogether. Besides the food he saw his medicine case, and everything else that belonged to him; his eye passed over it carelessly. A fat little moosehide bag sharply arrested his attention. Lifting it, he had no need to look inside. It was gold, a respectable weight to lift, two thousand dollars, he guessed.
An angry pain contracted his breast. "She pays me, and turns me off," he thought bitterly. "Does she think I did it for this?"
His first impulse was to drop it in the river. A better thought restrained him. He tried to put himself in Nahnya's place. "She's conscientious," he thought. "Even though she might guess it would hurt my feelings, she would feel obliged to pay me. But she shouldn't have given me so much."
As he continued his reflections, with a hand upon the little, swollen bag, his eyes began to shine. "I know how to get square with her," he was thinking "I will buy her a magnificent present with it. She's a woman after all. She can't be indifferent to beautiful things!"
Throughout the day Ralph had all the time there was to reflect upon what had happened. Hour after hour he sat on the little raft nursing his knees, his eyes, generally observant enough, turned within. He never could have told of that part of the journey, except to describe in general terms the unchanging flow of the jade-coloured river, with its endless procession of steep, grassy hills on either hand. The burden of his thoughts was: "You fool! To let her send you away! You should have seized her and held her and forced her to confess!"