There was a low tremble in Jeanne’s voice.  The canoe swung broadside to the slow current, and Philip looked in astonishment at the change in Pierre.  The tired half-breed had uncovered his head, and knelt with his face turned to that last crimson glow in the sky, like one in prayer.  But his eyes were open, there was a smile on his lips, and he was breathing quickly.  Pride and joy came where there had been the lines of grief and exhaustion.  His shoulders were thrown back, his head erect, and the fire of the distant rock reflected itself in his eyes.  From him Philip turned, so that he could look into Jeanne’s face.  The girl, too, had changed.  Again these two were the Pierre and Jeanne whom he had seen that first night on the moonlit cliff.  Pierre seemed no longer the half-breed, but the prince of the rapier and broad cuffs; and Jeanne, smiling proudly at Philip, made him an exquisite little courtesy from her cramped seat in the bow, and said: 

“M’sieur Philip, welcome to Fort o’ God!”

“Thank you,” he said, and stared toward the sun-capped rock.

He could see nothing but the rock, the black forests, and the desolate barren stretching between.  Fort o’ God, unless it was the rock itself, was still a mystery hidden in the gathering gloom.  The canoe began moving slowly onward, and Jeanne turned so that her eyes searched the stream ahead.  A thick wall of stunted forest shut out the barren from their view; the stream grew narrower, and on the opposite side a barren ridge, threatening them with torn and upheaved masses of rock, flung the heavy shadows of evening down upon them.  No one spoke.  Philip could hear Pierre breathing behind him:  something in the intense quiet—­in the awesome effect which their approach to Fort o’ God had upon these two—­sent strange little thrills shooting through his body.  He listened, and heard nothing, not even the howl of a dog.  The stillness was oppressive, and the darkness thickened about them.  For half an hour they continued, and then Pierre headed the canoe into a narrow creek, thrusting it through a thick growth of wild rice and reeds,

Balsam and cedar and swamp hazel shut them in.  Overhead the tall cedars interlaced, and hid the pale light of the sky.  Philip could just make out Jeanne ahead of him.

And then, suddenly, there came a wonderful change.  They shot out of the darkness, as if from a tunnel, but so quietly that one a dozen feet away could not have heard the ripple of Pierre’s paddle.  Almost in their faces rose a huge black bulk, and in that blackness three or four yellow lights gleamed like mellow stars.  The canoe touched noiselessly upon sand.  Pierre sprang out, still without sound.  Jeanne followed, with a whispered word.  Philip was last.

Pierre pulled the canoe up, and Jeanne came to Philip.  She held out her two hands.  Her face shone white in the gloom, and there was a look in her beautiful eyes, as she stood for a moment almost touching him, that set his heart jumping.  She let her hands lie in his while she spoke.