They were in smooth water. Barrett would have paused to take breath, but Lemaire’s voice barked at him from the stern. He obeyed. The canoe drove forward again—forward in great leaps, towards the point of a small island ahead, dimly seen through the snow—something wrong, though, thought Barrett, grunting; he could get no “beef” on the thing—it dragged; you’d have thought Bob was paddling against him. Then, suddenly, he understood. He called up the last of his strength, drove the paddle in, once, twice—again—heard a shout, flung himself overside into water waist-deep, and just as the canoe was sinking under them, he and Lemaire caught it and ran it ashore. Then, dripping, they looked each other in the face, and each seemed to see the face of disaster.
“It was a rock,” said Lemaire at last, very quietly, “a few inches below the surface. It has almost cut the canoe in two.”
“What’s to be done?”
“Find shelter, I suppose.”
They were very quiet about it. There was no shelter on their islet but a few rocks and a dead spruce in the middle. Here they set up their tent as a wind-break. It was bitterly cold; the island was sheathed with white ice, for the spray from the rough water froze now as it fell; everything in the canoe was wet; they were wet to their waists. They tried to induce the dead tree to burn, but the wood was so rotted with wet it only smouldered and went out. They had a little cooking-lamp and a few squares of compressed fuel for it; they lighted this, and Lemaire made tea with numbed hands. It renewed the life in them, but could not dry them. They huddled against the little lamp in silence, waiting—waiting.
After some time Lemaire heard a curious sound from Barrett; his teeth were chattering. Lemaire saw that his face had taken a waxy white hue. He spoke to him, and Barrett looked up, but his eyes were dim and glazed. “It’ll be all right,” he said, thickly, “we’ll get through, somehow. I’ve a feeling that this country can’t go back on a Lemaire.”
They were the first symptoms of collapse. Lemaire groaned. He got to his feet, and staggered across the slippery rocks. He shook his fist in the implacable face of the desolation. He shouted, foolish rage and defiance, caught back at his sanity; shouted again. . . . This time he thought he heard a faint cry in the snow. It whipped him back to self-control. He splashed out into the curdling shallows, shouting desperately.
Out of the gray drive of snow loomed the ghost of a canoe, paddled, as it seemed, by a ghost. It was the old Indian, whom Lemaire had long forgotten; the weather had not hindered him, the rapids had not wrecked him. At Lemaire’s cry he raised his head, and the canoe put inshore, waveringly. Lemaire splashed to meet it, met the incurious gaze of the half-blind old eyes under the scarred lids, and read into the wrinkled, foul old face, a sort of animal kindness.
Five minutes later he was desperately trying to rouse Barrett. Barrett looked at him at last, and Lemaire saw that the brief delirium was past. “What is it, Bob?” he asked, weakly. And Lemaire broke into a torrent of words.
“The old Indian—the old Indian you said was a hoodoo—don’t you remember? He’s here. He has caught us up, God knows how. He says his canoe’ll hold three. He says that a very little way on there’s a big camp, and that he’ll take us there—in a very little while. He says his tribe is always kind to strangers, to white men. . . . I can’t make out all he says, he’s queer in his head. But he’s dead sure of the encampment. He says it’s always there. .”