A dozen times
during the first half-hour after they entered the main stream
Philip heard this same laughing voice.
After a time there fell a silence upon those ahead. No sound rose
above the steady dip of paddles, and the speed of the two canoes
increased. Suddenly, from far up the river, there came a voice,
faintly at first, but growing steadily louder, singing one of the
wild half-breed songs of the forest. The voice broke the silence
of those in the canoes. They ceased paddling, and Philip stopped.
He heard low words, and after a few moments the paddling was
resumed, and the canoes turned in toward the shore. Philip
followed their movement, dropping fifty yards farther down the
stream, and thrust big birch-bark alongside a thick balsam that
had fallen into the river.
The singing voice approached rapidly. Five minutes later a long
company canoe floated down out of the gloom. It passed so near
that Philip could see the picturesque figure in the stern paddling
and singing. In the bow kneeled an Indian working in stoic
silence. Between them, in the body of the canoe, sat two men whom
he knew at a glance were white men. The strangers and their craft
slipped by with the quickness of a shadow.
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