After such sleep as makes the whole night but a pause between two sentences, they opened their eyes to behold a hint of daylight glimmering down their stump chimney, and Claire exclaimed:
“Child, did you bear the weight of my head all night?”
“I don’t know, madame,” replied Massawippa, laughing. “This canoe floated us wondrously in sleep. If it but carry us on the Ottawa as well, we shall pass over without trouble.”
They drew it up the steps of Jouaneaux’s house before eating their breakfast, and carried it between them to the river. Massawippa fastened one of her ropes to it and knotted the other end around a tree. She crept down to the water’s edge pushing the canoe, filled it with small rocks, and sunk it. They left their craft thus until late afternoon, while they staid cautiously underground, feeding the little fire with slab chips from Jouaneaux’s barn, and exchanging low-voiced chat.
Such close contact in a common peril and endeavor was not without its effect on both of them. Claire from superior had changed to pupil, and seemed developing hardihood without losing her soft refinements. Massawippa, mature for her years, and exactly nice, as became a princess, in all her personal habits, had from the moment of meeting this European dropped her taciturn Indian speech. She unconsciously imitated while she protected a creature so much finer than herself.
Venturing forth when shadows were stretching from the west across that angry mass of waters, they emptied their canoe from its wetting and wiped it out with the hempen sack. But Massawippa still shook her head at it.
“Madame, I am afraid this canoe will not carry us well. Can you swim?”
“No, Massawippa; I never learned to do anything useful,” replied Claire.