“Maintenant mak’ fight!” Jules thought, and felt under his shirt for his knife, found it, put it between his teeth, and sat waiting. The something grew into the shape of a canoe with a man. It came on slowly; then the man stopped paddling, and Jules pictured him listening. Nearer and nearer drifted the canoe; only the drip-drip-drip of the drops from the oncoming paddle-blade that rested across the canoe. Right up to the bow of Jules’s craft it came, then the man backed water, seeing the woods ahead of him, and his canoe was motionless while he listened, five feet from Verbaux. Everything became still, it seemed to Jules; even the insects ceased humming; his heart-beats were heavy, a surely audible sound he thought, as he gripped the knife closer with his teeth. He could see the man perfectly now: Le Pendu it was; the cold moonlight brought his figure into clear relief with the dark background. Le Pendu sat there listening, scanning the woods.
“Diable, vat dat Ah hear?” he said, half aloud, and listened again. A musquash swam between the two canoes, and saw the strange things; it dove at once with a noisy splash; the ripples flowed away, sparkling in the night light, and broke with a light curling on the pebbles of the shore. In a moment the black head reappeared beyond the stern of Le Pendu’s canoe; it swam round and looked at this unknown thing that invaded the sanctity of the wild waters of the North. Le Pendu moved his head, watching; instantly the musquash saw and dove again loudly, and was gone beneath the waters; its wake rolled evenly away and was dispersed by the weight of the lake. Jules sat in his canoe, watching the man almost at his elbow. And so the two were, when an indistinct thumping sounded from beyond.
Le Pendu swung his canoe round with a long stroke of his paddle; another canoe loomed black and drew near.
“S-s-s-st!” its guide said softly.
“S-s-s-st!” Le Pendu answered, and moved his craft to meet the other.
“Sa-win? [Do you hear anything?]” The rough voice was toned low.
“Ah-ha,” Le Pendu answered, “mais eet vas kil-ou-th [muskrat], Ah t’ink!”
“La-cha-ne-weet-chil-to-o? [Did you see him?]”
“Non,” Le Pendu growled softly, and the two canoes floated side by side.
Jules waited; the canoes near him watched, and lay there, mirrored vaguely on the even waters. An owl hooted from the black forests, and its hoarse call echoed away among the trees. Then Le Pendu’s canoe began to move down the shore.