Jean took the river side and I the inland thicket, feeling our
way blindly through the blackness of forest and storm and night. Then
the rain broke--broke in lashing whip-cords with the crackle of fire.
Jean whistled and I signalled back; but there was soon such a pounding
of rains it drowned every sound. For all the help one could give the
other we might have been a thousand miles apart. I looked back. M.
Radisson's fire threw a dull glare into the cavernous upper darkness.
That was guide enough. Jean could keep his course by the river.
It was plunging into a black nowhere. The trees thinned. I seemed to
be running across the open, the rain driving me forward like a wet
sail, a roar of wind in my ears and the words of M. Radisson ringing
their battle-cry--"Storm and cold--man and beast--powers of darkness
and devil--knaves and fools and his own sins--he must fight them
all!"--"Who?"--"The victor!"
Of a sudden the dripping thicket gave back a glint. Had I run in a
circle and come again on M. Radisson's fire? Behind, a dim glare still
shone against the sky.
Another glint from the rain drip, and I dropped like a deer hit on the
run. Not a gunshot away was a hunter's fire. Against the fire were
three figures. One stood with his face towards me, an Indian dressed
in buckskin, the man who had pursued the deer.
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