This day at dusk they passed the hidden cove where she had found Marc
Dupre waiting to build her fire. The abandoned canoe still lay hidden
where he left it.
Cool blue dawn, hushed and wide-reaching, still with that stillness
which precedes the sunrise, lay over the river, when the lone canoe
rounded the lower bend and Anders McElroy, factor of Fort de Seviere,
came back to his own again.
In the prow there knelt a weary figure in a soiled and sun-bleached
garment of doeskin, its glittering plastron of bright beads broken here
and there, the ragged ends of sinews hanging as they were left by briar
and branch, and the haggard eyes went with eager swiftness to the
stockade standing in its grim invincibility facing the east.
The row of wonted canoes lay upturned upon the shelving shore at the
landing, the half-moon at the right still glowered with its puny cannon
which had spoken no word to save their master on that fateful day, and
all things looked as if but a day had passed between.
The great gate with its studded breast was closed, the bastions at the
corners were empty of watchers, for peace folded its wings above the
past.
Without sound the boat cut up to the landing, Brilliers leaped out and
steadied it to place, and Maren stepped once more upon the familiar
slope.
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