"That is all, M'sieur. I can say no more. Ah, there is Jeanne!" he cried, more loudly. "Now we will take down the tent, and go."
Jeanne stood a dozen steps behind them when Philip turned. She greeted him with a smile, and hastened to assist Pierre in gathering up the things about the camp. Philip was not blind to her efforts to evade him. He could see that it was a relief to her when they were at last in Pierre's canoe, and headed up the river. They traveled till late in the evening, and set up Jeanne's tent by starlight. The journey was continued at dawn. Late the following afternoon the Little Churchill swept through a low, woodless country, called the White Fox Barren. It was a narrow barren and across it lay the forest and the ridge mountains. Behind these mountains and the forest the sun was setting. Above all else there rose out of the gathering gloom of evening a single ridge, a towering mass of rock which caught the last glow of the sun, and blazed like a signal-fire.
The canoe stopped. Jeanne and Pierre both gazed toward the great rock.
Then Jeanne, who was in the bow, turned her face to Philip, and the glow of the rock itself suffused her cheeks as she pointed over the barren.
"M'sieur Philip," she said, "there is Fort o' God!"
XVI
There was a low tremble in Jeanne's voice. The canoe swung broadside to the slow current, and Philip looked in astonishment at the change in Pierre. The tired half-breed had uncovered his head, and knelt with his face turned to that last crimson glow in the sky, like one in prayer. But his eyes were open, there was a smile on his lips, and he was breathing quickly. Pride and joy came where there had been the lines of grief and exhaustion. His shoulders were thrown back, his head erect, and the fire of the distant rock reflected itself in his eyes. From him Philip turned, so that he could look into Jeanne's face. The girl, too, had changed. Again these two were the Pierre and Jeanne whom he had seen that first night on the moonlit cliff. Pierre seemed no longer the half-breed, but the prince of the rapier and broad cuffs; and Jeanne, smiling proudly at Philip, made him an exquisite little courtesy from her cramped seat in the bow, and said:
"M'sieur Philip, welcome to Fort o' God!"
"Thank you," he said, and stared toward the sun-capped rock.