This increased sensibility was for evil as well as good. While the river seemed even lovelier, if possible, than upon the previous journey, side by side with the pleasure he had in it, a premonition of evil entered Ralph's breast. "Something is going to happen," a voice whispered to him. He sought to laugh it away, but it stuck. He could not but remember the stories that are told in the North of how men living alone in the woods become gifted with a prescience of what is to come.
With a vague feeling that escape from the danger lay ahead, he paddled until ten o'clock that night. Darkness was then falling, and his weary arms could scarcely lift the paddle. He camped on the river in the spot where they had dined on the second day of the other journey. He fell asleep with the premonition like a cold hand on his breast.
"An instant later a long dugout swept into view, with four men in it"
In the morning it awakened him all of a piece. He abruptly sat up to listen. There was no sound. "What is the matter with me?" he thought wonderingly. "Something is upon you," that still voice seemed to whisper. He looked to his gun. His heart failed him a little, he was so terribly alone. Inside him he offered up an unspoken prayer that whatever was coming might come quickly, before fear of the unknown should unman him.
Hastily cooking his breakfast, he never ceased to listen; therefore he was scarcely surprised when he finally heard the most startling sound in the wilderness—human voices. An instant later a long dugout swept into view upstream with four men in it. Courage warmed Ralph's breast again; to be sure it was bad enough, but it was real.
At sight of Ralph the men in the dugout set up a shout. Arriving abreast of his camp they swung around and beached their craft below. In the bow was a white man strange to Ralph, Joe Mixer and Stack sat amidships, while the stern paddle was wielded by a handsome, muscular young half-breed. They all got out. Ralph awaited them on the top of the bank. Burly Joe approached with an anticipatory, cynical grin; little Stack kept partly behind him.
"Hello, pardner!" cried Joe.
Ralph, seeing that he actually expected to keep up the fiction of friendliness, smiled grimly. "What do you want?" he asked.