"We camped in another burned-out place. This is the loneliest spot on earth almost, and even here man has left his dirty work. The man, red or white, who is responsible for a fire ought to be drawn and quartered. It's ghastly. Nahnya has put the fear of God into Charley. Last thing before we move on she makes him haul water until every spark is quenched. Mosquitoes bad to-night.
"Couldn't sleep. This violent, ugly river, and the ghastly burned-over country, and other things gave me the willies. A brute of a bird flew in circles over the tent half the night, uttering a single croaking note like a cracked funeral bell. Lord! we're a long way off from folks! Fancy Charley and Nahnya taking these trips by themselves. She sleeps like a baby, without ever moving or missing a breath.
"Next day. The old river doesn't look so bad with the sun shining on it. Saw three bears as we went flying down. How does anybody get up this current I wonder. You can't always be going down-stream. Nothing but cut-banks, bars, drift-piles, and vicious little rapids on the bends. Eagles sailing like aeroplanes overhead, and screaming as if they had steel springs in their throats.
"Third day on the Rice River. We have come nearly two hundred miles on this stream, I guess, and not a soul, red or white, not a hut, nor the remains of a hut all the way. The current seems to be slackening, and we lose ourselves in a mess of islands; so I suppose there is something saving for us ahead. This is the sixth day from Gisborne, so we ought to arrive there to-morrow, wherever and whatever 'there' is."
The entries in the little black book ended with these words.
Ralph's diary confined itself discreetly to the visual aspects of the journey, avoiding the psychological. All was not smooth sailing here of course. Ralph was keeping a tight hold on himself that entailed no little nervous strain, and he was apt to break out unreasonably. Nahnya, while generally friendly, had an exasperating way of relapsing at any time into the mysterious inscrutability which maddened him. Only Charley was always the same.
On the afternoon of the third day on the Rice River, after one of the colloquies in Cree with her brother that always irritated Ralph, Nahnya suddenly brought the dugout around in the current, and grounded it on a shelving, stony beach. Charley got out and pulled it up.
"What's this for?" said Ralph, surprised. "It isn't but an hour since we ate."
Nahnya affected not to hear him.
Ralph instantly flew into a passion. "Oh, very well!" he cried. "If you want to be mysterious!"