"If my father still searches for me," said Patricia in a low voice, "may it not be his party that we hear? There may be a stream there. They may make canoes."
"With all my heart I pray that it be so, madam," said Landless. "But we will soon know. See, Monakatocka has gone on ahead."
She did not answer, and they walked on through the gloom of the defile. Presently their path became rough and broken, blocked with large stones and heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above and draped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and he helped her across the rough places. He felt her hands tremble in his, and he thought it was with the ecstasy of the hope which inspired her.
"If it is indeed so," she said once in a voice so low that he had to bend to catch the words, "if it is indeed my father, then this is the last time you will help me thus."
"Yes," he answered steadily. "The last time."
They passed the rocks and came to where the ravine widened. The sound that had perplexed them was now plainly audible; there was no mistaking the quick, ringing strokes of the axe. They rounded a jutting cliff and abruptly emerged from the chill darkness of the gorge upon a noble landscape of hill and valley, autumn woods and flowing water, all bathed in the golden light of the sinking sun and inestimably bright and precious of aspect after the gloom through which they had been traveling. But it was not the beauty of the scene which drew an exclamation from them both. At a little distance rose a knoll, covered with short grass and fading golden-rod, and with its base laved by a crystal stream of some width, and upon the knoll, shaded by a couple of magnificent maples, and covered with the pale and feathery bloom of the wild clematis, stood a small, rude hut. Smoke rose from its crazy chimney, and upon the strip of greensward before the door rolled a little, half-naked child—a white child. As the travelers stared in amazement, a woman's voice rang out, freshly and sweetly, in an English ballad. The trees had been cleared away from around the knoll, and in their place rose the yellowing stalks of Indian corn. The little mound, feathered with the gold of the golden-rod and girt with the gold of the maize, rose like a fairy isle from the limitless sea of forest, and the apparition of a troop of veritable elves would have astonished the wanderers less than did the tiny cabin, the romping child, and the clear song of the woman.
The Indian glided to their side from behind the trunk of an oak. "Ugh," he said with emphasis. "He is mad and so he has his scalp still." As he spoke he pointed to where, at a little distance, a man, with his back turned to the forest, was busily felling a tree.
"He dares much," said Landless. "We did not think to see the face of a white man—pioneer, ranger, trapper or trader—for many a league yet. He has built his house in the jaws of the wolf."
Patricia gazed at the hut with wistful eyes. "There is a woman there," she said, and Landless heard her voice tremble for the first time in their long, toilsome and painful journey. "There is no need to pass them by, is there? It looks very fair and peaceful. May we not rest here for this one night?"
"Yes," said Landless gently, reading, as he read all her fancies and desires, her longing for the companionship of a woman, though for so short a time. The Indian, too, nodded assent. "Good! but Monakatocka will watch to-night."