Half an hour later Mrs. Godfrey and a Mrs. Fowler were making their way by stumps of trees and over branches, with their arms loaded with things for the sick Indian. They were soon on board, and then Jim Newall paddled away up stream.
As the canoe slipped along, every spot on the shores seemed familiar to Margaret's eyes, and many sad thoughts flashed across her mind; memories of days never to be forgotten rose in her soul. She remarked to Mrs. Fowler, "How little everything has changed since I was here last, eight years ago, except at the settlement."
The morning was a charming one, the river was running, fairly rushing up, otherwise all nature seemed to sleep. The splash of the paddle, the ripple of the water along the sides of the canoe, and the gentle rolling of the little bark, were the only things that disturbed the quiet that reigned supreme all about. The Indian never spoke, and Margaret and her companion, as they sat one ahead of the other in the bottom of the canoe, seldom exchanged a word.
Mrs. Godfrey saw at a glance that the canoe was nearing the place where Paul Guidon and his mother had once lived. As she looked toward the shore her eyes rested upon a form standing at the water's edge, and as the canoe approached nearer and nearer the shore, she recognized the form as that of the pretty squaw she had met at the settlement the previous day. Margaret Godfrey remarked to Mrs. Fowler, "There stands the pretty creature I met yesterday." Mrs. Fowler replied, "She does not look like the squaws we so often see about the settlement." She continued, "What a neat, tidy girl she is. I have never seen her at Parrtown, what a handsome face and fine form she has"
"And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,
Of finer form, or lovelier face."
The bow of the canoe had now touched the shore, and the Indian lass most politely made a courtesy to the ladies in the canoe.
After landing, Mrs. Fowler put a piece of silver in Jim Newall's hand and asked him if he would take them back home again in an hour or two. Jim nodded an assent as he pulled his little bark out of the water to the dry land.
Mrs. Godfrey, once on shore, fully recognized that she was at the old camping ground of her protector in by gone days, Paul Guidon.