He chuckled behind unsmiling lips.
“They’ll go up the Kenneticook in their canoes,” said he. “We’ll hide the boat here, where they’ll not find it; and we’ll cut across the ridge to the Englishman’s. Quicker, too!”
The creek was narrow and winding, but deep for the first two hundred yards of its course; and Nicole, he knew every turn and shallow. We beached the boat where she could not be seen from the river, tied her to a tree on the bank above so that she might not get away at high tide, and then plunged into the dense young fir woods that clothed the lower reaches of the Piziquid shore. There was no trail, but it was plain to me that Nicole well knew the way.
“You’ve gone this way before, Nicole?” said I.
“Yes, monsieur, a few times,” he answered.
I considered for a moment, pushing aside the wet, prickly branches as I went. Then—
“What is her name, Nicole?” I asked.
“Julie, Master Paul,” said he softly.
“Ah,” said I, “then you had reasons of your own for coming with me to-night?”
“Not so!” he answered, a rebuking sobriety in his voice. “None, save my love for you and your house, Master Paul. She is in no peril. She is far from here, safe in Isle St. Jean this month past.”