They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated measure.

"Toutes les plumes s’en vont au vent, En roulant ma boule, Trois dames s’en vont les ramassant, Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."

The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of swifter water.  The men bent to their work with stiffened elbows.  Achille Picard flashed his white teeth back at the passengers,

“Ah, mademoiselle, eet is wan long way,” he panted.  “C’est une longue traverse!”

The term was evidently descriptive, but the two smiled significantly at each other.

“So you do take la Longue Traverse, after all!” marvelled Virginia.

Ned Trent clasped her hand.

“We take it together,” he replied.

Into the distance faded the Post.  The canoe rounded a bend.  It was gone.  Ahead of them lay their long journey.

THE END

BOOKS ON NATURE STUDY BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.

THE KINDRED OF THE WILD.  A Book of Animal Life.  With illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.

Appeals alike to the young and to the merely youthful-hearted.  Close observation.  Graphic description.  We get a sense of the great wild and its denizens.  Out of the common.  Vigorous and full of character.  The book is one to be enjoyed; all the more because it smacks of the forest instead of the museum.  John Burroughs says:  “The volume is in many ways the most brilliant collection of Animal Stories that has appeared.  It reaches a high order of literary merit.”

THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD.  Illustrated.

This book strikes a new note in literature.  It is a realistic romance of the folk of the forest—­a romance of the alliance of peace between a pioneer’s daughter in the depths of the ancient wood and the wild beasts who felt her spell and became her friends.  It is not fanciful, with talking beasts; nor is it merely an exquisite idyl of the beasts themselves.  It is an actual romance, in which the animal characters play their parts as naturally as do the human.  The atmosphere of the book is enchanting.  The reader feels the undulating, whimpering music of the forest, the power of the shady silences, the dignity of the beasts who live closest to the heart of the wood.

THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS.  A companion volume to the “Kindred of the Wild.”  With 48 full page plates and decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.

These stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft.  “This is a book full of delight.  An additional charm lies in Mr. Bull’s faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing the pen pictures of the authors.”—­Literary Digest.