Eh, M'sieu, is it not a better picture?"
"For you, no doubt. For me, I had rather contemplate a prayer-book and
recall my mother's teaching in these days," answered McElroy simply.
"What it is to have sins upon one's conscience!" sighed the venturer.
"Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts." And he fell to
humming a gay French air.
Presently the foaming river, growing swifter as it neared the great
lake, leaped and plunged into the wide surface of Winnipeg, shooting
its burdens out upon the glassy breast of the lake like a spreading
fan.
Here the blue sky was mirrored faithfully below with its lazy clouds,
the green shores rimmed away to right and left, and the swarming
canoes, with their gleaming paddles, made a picture well worth looking
at.
The Nakonkirhirinons were going back to the Pays d'en Haut by another
way than that by which they had come.
Hugging the western shore, the flotilla strung out into the formation
of a wedge, with the canoe of the dead chief at the apex, and went on,
day after day, in comparative silence.
With the passing of the sleeping green shores, the ceaseless slide of
the quiet waters, a tender peace began to come into McElroy's soul.
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