“Hold fast,” said Menard. He gave a last sweep of the paddle, and crept forward to the bow. Kneeling behind the maid, he reached over her shoulder, and took the line below her hand.
“Careful, M’sieu; it may break.”
“We must risk it.” He pulled slowly in until the fish was close under the gunwale. “Now can you hold?”
“Yes.” She shook a straying lock of hair from her eyes, and took another turn of the cord around her wrist.
“Steady,” he said. He drew his knife, leaned over the gunwale, and stabbed at the fighting fish until his blade sank in just below the gills, and he could lift it aboard.
The maid laughed nervously, and rested her hands upon the two gunwales. Her breath was gone, and there was a red mark around her wrist where the cord had been. The canoe had drifted into the rushes, and Menard went back to his paddle, and worked out again into the channel.
“And now, Mademoiselle,” he said, “we shall 59 have a breakfast of our own. You need not paddle. I will take her down.”
Her breath was coming back. She laughed, and sat comfortably in the bow, facing Menard, and letting her eyes follow the steady swing and catch of his paddle. When they reached the camp, the voyageurs were astir, but Danton and the priest still slept. The first red glare of the sun was levelled at them over the eastern trees.
Menard made a fire under an arch of flat stones, and trimming a strip of oak wood with his hatchet, he laid the cleaned fish upon it and kept it on the fire until it was brown and crisp. The maid sat by, her eyes alert and her cheeks flushed.
Danton was awake before the fish was cooked, and he stood about with a pretence of not observing them. The maid was fairly aroused. She drew him into the talk, and laughed and bantered with the two men as prettily as they could have wished from a Quebec belle.