it.  He envied the men at the sweeps; he felt his heart swelling at the exultation and joy in their song.  They were going home—­home down the big rivers, home to the heart of God’s Country, where wives and sweethearts and happiness were waiting for them, and their visions were his visions as he stared wide-eyed and motionless over the river.  And yet he was irrevocably an alien.  He was more than that—­an enemy, a man-hound sent out on a trail to destroy, an agent of a powerful and merciless force that carried with it punishment and death.

The crew of the bateau had joined in the evening song of the rivermen on the raft, and over the ridges and hollows of the forest tops, red and green and gold in the last warm glory of the sun, echoed that chanting voice of men.  David understood now what St. Pierre’s command had been.  The huge raft with its tented city of life was preparing to tie up for the night.  A quarter of a mile ahead the river widened, so that on the far side was a low, clean shore toward which the efforts of the men at the sweeps were slowly edging the raft.  York boats shot out on the shore side and dropped anchors that helped drag the big craft in.  Two others tugged at tow-lines fastened to the shoreside bow, and within twenty minutes the first men were plunging up out of the water on the white strip of beach and were whipping the tie-lines about the nearest trees.  David unconsciously was smiling in the thrill and triumph of these last moments, and not until they were over did he sense the fact that Bateese and his crew were bringing the bateau in to the opposite shore.  Before the sun was quite down, both raft and house-boat were anchored for the night.

As the shadows of the distant forests deepened, Carrigan felt impending about him an oppression of emptiness and loneliness which he had not experienced before.  He was disappointed that the bateau had not tied up with the raft.  Already he could see men building fires.  Spirals of smoke began to rise from the shore, and he knew that the riverman’s happiest of all hours, supper time, was close at hand.  He looked at his watch.  It was after seven o’clock.  Then he watched the fading away of the sun until only the red glow of it remained in the west, and against the still thicker shadows the fires of the rivermen threw up yellow flames.  On his own side, Bateese and the bateau crew were preparing their meal.  It was eight o’clock when a man he had not seen before brought in his supper.  He ate, scarcely sensing the taste of his food, and half an hour later the man reappeared for the dishes.

It was not quite dark when he returned to his window, but the far shore was only an indistinct blur of gloom.  The fires were brighter.  One of them, built solely because of the rivermen’s inherent love of light and cheer, threw the blaze of its flaming logs twenty feet into the air.