"No, I am not afraid. But it is dark—so dark—"
"The moon will be with us again in a few nights—your moon, with the Old Man smiling down on us. I know how the Man in the Moon must feel when he's on the other side of the world, and can't see you, Nada."
Her silence made him lean toward her, striving to get a better view of her face where the starlight broke through an opening in the tree-tops.
And in that moment he heard a little breath that was almost a sob.
"It's Peter," she said, before he could speak. "Oh, Roger, why didn't we bring Peter?"
"Possibly—we should have," he replied, skipping a stroke with his paddle. "But I think we have done the best thing for Peter. He is a wilderness dog, and has never known anything different. Over there, where we are going—"
"I understand. And some day, Father John will bring him?"
"Yes. He has promised that. Peter will come to us when Father John comes."
She had turned, looking into the pit-gloom ahead of them, so dark that the canoe seemed about to drive against a wall. Under its bow the water gurgled like oil.
"We are entering the big cedar swamp," he explained. "It is like Blind Man's Buff, isn't it? Can you see?"