For twenty years he watched the sturdy growth of one great tree that towered above its mates; and when the noble bole, both straight and strong, was grown to such proportions that he deemed it fit to brave the rapids, such its curve, he laid the monarch low, and hewed, and shaped, and burned, and thickly overlaid with pitch, and launched it on the Lower Saguenay—a fine, well-balanced craft, his floating camp; and this was thirty years or more agone.
His destination now made known, upon the river bank a crowd eyed him agape. With pride he showed to wondering Tadoussac how he had made provision for his voyage.
Along one side was lashed a sapling pine with seamless sail, three-cornered and close furled; 'twas fashioned from the stout flap of a tent. Along the other stretched two pockets strong of moose skin, hair side out to shed the rain. The topmost one he filled with ample store of salmon smoked on his own spit of ash, and good supply of that brown wrinkled leaf whose qualmy fragrance, issuing from the bowl of his loved pipe, had ever proved in camp and wild the solace of his lonely life.
Within the other pocket he had placed his comrade-breadwinner, his trusted gun. Its shining barrel glistened cunningly from out the soft black depths, and knowingly, for many a wingèd voyager of the air would it bring low to beat the lucent wave to crimson froth before the voyage were done. Both oars and paddles of well-seasoned ash he laid within the dugout's ample hulk.
Then he was ready to set out, and seek that shining wonder-city by the Lake—a "New Jerusalem", the English said, and they to André never yet had lied. His old-time friends were gathered at the pier to bid him on his quest "God Speed". They cast the painter loose.
"Adieu—adieu," a hand clasp here and there, and then again: "Adieu!"
Pierre, with forepaws stemmed against the prow, bayed musical farewell. Old André turned and murmuring, "Adieu," broke forth exultantly in joyous song:
"Je chercherai
Là bas, là bas
La ville de Dieu, la merveilleuse;
Si je la trouve, quand je serai
De mon retour,
Elle chante toujours, mon âme joyeuse,—
Les gloires de Dieu, les gloires de Dieu."
So aged André, guide and voyageur, his parchment face alight with inward joy, fared forth to seek that City in the West.
For you who love the sunlight on the wave, who hail with joy the sunrise ever new; for you to whom the starlight brings a thought of that high peace that guides the wanderer; for you who watch the coming of the day with eyes that see the miracle of life; for you who share in all the fair delights of sunlight, moonlight, starlight, twilight, dawn, and feel their charm in every mood and tense of nature's perfecting—for you alone I sing this voyage over inland seas.