Then he gave his shoulders a quick impatient twitch, and taking up
his book began once more to read.
CHAPTER II
THE MAN AND HIS MISSION
At almost the same hour in which Sam Carr and his daughter held that
intimate conversation on the porch of their home a twenty-foot
Peterborough freight canoe was sliding down the left-hand bank of the
Athabasca like some gray river-beast seeking the shade of the birch and
willow growth that overhung the shore. The current beneath and the
thrust of the blades sent it swiftly along the last mile of the river
and shot the gray canoe suddenly beyond the sharp nose of a jutting
point fairly into the bosom of a great, still body of water that spread
away northeastward in a widening stretch, its farthest boundary a watery
junction with the horizon.
There were three men in the canoe. One squatted forward, another rested
his body on his heels in the after end. These two were swarthy, stockily
built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats
crowning lank, black hair long innocent of a barber's touch.
The third man sat amidships in a little space left among goods that were
piled to the top of the deep-sided craft. He was no more like his
companions than the North that surrounded them with its silent waterways
and hushed forests is like the tropical jungle.
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