We landed on the north shore of the lake. I followed him along a trail, that led through a depression between two heights, upwards to a heavily wooded small plateau overlooking the lake. I followed his lead for another quarter of a mile through these woods. I could see no trail. Then we came into a path, a good one. I remarked on it.
"Yes: I have made it these many years. I come here every year."
We heard the rush of a near-by torrent. The air swept cool over through the woods and struck full on our faces. In a few minutes we were facing it—a singing mass of water pouring down the smooth face of a rock like the apron of a dam; the face was inclined at an angle of fifty degrees. The torrent plunged into a basin set deep among rocks. Above this pool, above the surrounding trees, towered one great pine. André led me to it.
"I have been coming here so many years—count," he said, pointing to the notches from the butt upwards to a height beyond my reach.
This was the tree about which Jamie had sung, notched year after year by André, since he was ten, that he might know his age. And what an age! I counted: "Eighty notches."
"Oh, André, all those years?"
"But yes—and so many more." He held up his ten fingers.
"And Mère Guillardeau will be a hundred her next birthday?"
He nodded. "Yes; my sister is no longer in her first youth."
He began to count backwards and downwards. I counted after him: "Twenty-seven." By the last notch there was a deep gash.