Day and night it shot forward, pulled by sturdy arms, half its people
sleeping curled between thwarts, the other half manning the paddles,
stopping for snatched rations, reading the signs of passing. So it
crept forward upon the thing it sought, untiring, eager, absurd in its
daring and its hope.
Like an embodiment of that very absurdity of courage so dear to the
hearts of these men, the girl sat in the prow, taking a hand in the
work with the best of them, beaconing the way as she had done before
her venturers of Grand Portage, firing them with her calm certainty,
binding them to her more firmly with each day.
To each bit of courtesy done eagerly to her there was her grave "I
thank you,"--at each portage and line her hand to the rope, her
shoulder to the pack, and all in the simple unconsciousness of her
womanhood that made her what she was,--a leader.
Before forty-eight hours had passed they would have followed her to the
brink of death,--to the Pays d'en Haut, to the heart of an hostile
camp.
They fixed their eyes on her shining braids, bare to the sun, and
anticipated her commands, obeyed her few words implicitly, and who
shall say that many a dream did not weave itself around her in the
summer days, for every man in the boat was young.
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