“This is our one chance to reach him,” struggled Claire. “Oh, the woods, and the rivers, and the Iroquois—they are all coming between us again!”
“It is no chance at all, madame. I know what my father would do.”
“O my Dollard!” groaned Claire in the dead leaves. “Oh, do not let him go by! Must he flit and flit from me—must I follow him so through space forever when we are dead?”
Almost like dream-men, wreathed slowly about by mists, their alternating paddles making no sound which could be caught by the woman on the island living so keenly in her ears, the expedition passed into the mouth of the Ottawa. When they could be seen no more, Claire lay in dejection like death.
XVIII.
THE WALKING HERMIT.
THEY have been these five[9] days getting past Ste. Anne,” remarked Massawippa. “I could not have paddled against that current with the best of canoes. My father will soon follow; we dare scarcely stir until my father passes. He would see us if we did more than breathe; the Huron knows all things around him. And if he finds us, he will put us back into safety, after all our trouble.”