"Feel! I feel as if I could run a thousand miles and jump off the ends
of the earth--"
"And dive to the bottom of the sea and harness whales and play
bowling-balls with the spheres, you young rantipoles," added M.
Radisson ironically.
"The fever of the adventurer," said Jean quietly. "My uncle knows it."
I laughed again. "I was wondering if Eli Kirke ever felt this way," I
explained.
"Pardieu," retorted M. de Radisson, loosening his coat, "if people
moved more and moped less, they'd brew small bile! Come, lads! Come,
lads! We waste time!"
And we were paddling again, in quick, light strokes, silent from zest,
careless of toil, strenuous from love of it.
Once we came to a bend in the river where the current was so strong
that we had dipped our paddles full five minutes against the mill race
without gaining an inch. The canoe squirmed like a hunter balking a
hedge, and Jean's blade splintered off to the handle. But M. de
Radisson braced back to lighten the bow; the prow rose, a sweep of the
paddles, and on we sped!
"Hard luck to pull and not gain a boat length," observed Jean.
"Harder luck not to pull, and to be swept back," corrected M. de
Radisson.
We left the main river to thread a labyrinthine chain of waterways,
where were portages over brambly shores and slippery rocks, with the
pace set at a run by M.
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