Shadows trembled on the river, and Grant, going moodily along the bank, studied the dusky woods. Tasselled larch tops cut the green sky, and where the trees were thin the dull-red sunset burned behind the trunks. The river brawled among the rocks, and in the gloom cowbells chimed. The brushwood had begun to sprout, and a freighter had turned his oxen loose to feed.
Grant carried a rod and line, but he did not mean to fish, and the landscape’s stern beauty did not interest him. He looked for Rose Dubois, and when he felt the package in his bag jolt at his back, he knew himself a fool. Not long since he thought he hated Rose, and he hated the skins he had stolen for her, but when he saw her white dress his heart beat. Rose waited by a spruce trunk that had fallen across the rocks, and notin
