Jean was left forlorn. While Agricola crowded close to her in silent sympathy, she had watched the Kittiwake fade into a mere silver tern, and felt that this was the end of everything.

Alas! She had not read The Tempest for nothing. She knew her natural mate as certainly as Miranda did when she first changed eyes with Ferdinand. It almost killed her to refuse him, and to see him the patient log-bearer of some money-lord, for deep in her heart she felt that nothing ill could dwell in such a temple.

She attended to her work all the morning, but found herself making little mistakes. She prepared some dinner for herself, but could not eat. In the middle of the afternoon she stole away from Agricola and rowed over to the island. To her immense surprise she found the tent still standing. Maybe the dreadful fight would have to be fought again.

She flitted all over the island, now stopping to touch some favorite pine, now standing on the eastern rim to imagine how steamers would look there. By and by she heard Agricola dolefully howling for her, and went back.

She changed her moccasins for old shoes, put on overalls, and went up to the barn to milk. But no beautiful Jersey greeted her. The naughty Sempronia had failed to come home out of the bush. So she returned to the house and changed back to skirt and moccasins, wistfully longing for just one pretty dress.

It was beginning to rain, and she might expect to see the Kittiwake returning soon. Even a rejected lover had to eat, and she would make some hot corn bread.

She set the fire crackling to get a quick oven, and sifted some of the Little Pine’s snowy flour in with some golden grains. She supposed that the corn meal was cadmium yellow, but why? All she knew about Cadmus was that he was a Tyrian prince who came over to defraud the Greeks in business, and who sowed dissensions that slew all the Horatios.

The time slipped along, the rain fell drowsily on the roof, and at eight o’clock the travelers had not arrived. Perhaps they had motored up the Echo to see the wonderful lake, and were delayed in getting back. She had paddled up that river in her childhood, and could still smell the lilies and the buckwheat, mingled effluences sweeter than sandalwood, and could see the rafts that often delayed a boat.

She sat down and read awhile. She rose and moved restlessly about the house till she found herself in the storeroom, counting her treasures. They had not seemed so imposing at first. Money bought few provisions these days, and this array must have cost something like thirty dollars! The mention of the sum recalled what she had jestingly said to Marvin about English lessons. She studied the Little Pine’s note again, and noticed that he said nothing as to how he “made quite much money.” The thing began to look suspicious.

Shinguakonse had never told her a lie, but if he had run across Marvin Mahan and been made the tool of compassion, her cup of humiliation was full.

In an hour she could know. She would go to the birch-bark lodge which she had helped build, and wake that boy up.

In a few minutes she had stepped into outer darkness, leaving poor Agricola to whine. Once in her dory she fastened her lantern and tucked her sweater under the deck. She worked her way out into the channel and started north. Her blood was up, the night was dark, and she doffed her blouse. Soon she had entered the old unlighted channel and extinguished her light.

The winding swift stream was no place for an amateur. Many a rock barely visible on a quiet morning will rip a canoe. If you stand on the headland where Ojeeg’s ancestors used to watch for bear, you see below you a flowing pavement, dark and uneven, warped and cracked, a street that only the gull can tread. Now it was Jean’s business to climb it in utter darkness, but she knew the way. She did not need the gleam of a lantern on a blossom of foam. She could tell by the pull of the current and the sound of the rapids.

She groped along the eastern shore of Seen-ze-bah-cud, and by ten o’clock her right oar, like a fingertip, discovered Ojeeg’s sailboat.

She lighted her lantern and tied her boat to a birch that leaned out over the water. Then she stepped ashore, hung her lantern on a hazel, and put on her blouse. The lantern shone in the bush and pinked out the tufted bunches of hazel-nuts, and shone on Jean herself as she lifted her rosy arms.

Warm in her new sweater, she seized the lantern and started up a path. Sometimes the light revealed a maple with scars, for the Indian tomahawks his sugar trees. Here it flashed on the yellow of a certain birch which draws on the same mysterious fountain as the wintergreen. Here it glowed on ancient elms. Far above in the blackness their mighty harps hung motionless, waiting like Memnon for the morning. A mile of it, all fragrant and dark and virginal, and the sound of rain on the leafy roof gave way. She was in Ojeeg’s clearing.

She moved softly past the house and came to the door of the birch-bark lodge. It was open, and from within came a sudden growl. “Ahne-moosh!” she whispered. A big Eskimo dog emerged and licked her hand in the dark.

Then she called softly, “Shinguakonse!”

No answer.

She threw the gleam of her lantern ahead. The lad was sound asleep on his bed of birch, the deerskin thongs of which were visible beside the blanket in which he was rolled.

She sat down on the silvery edge and touched him. He started, opened bewildered eyes, and sat up.

“Tyah! Is Mainutung sick?”

“No.”

“Is Mahan drowned?”

“Not yet. But your question explains everything. He fell in again, and gave you money for pulling him out. Do you have to be paid for saving life?”

The boy looked at her flashing eyes and sank back on his bed.

“Shinguakonse, don’t think me ungrateful. See, I am wearing your sweater. We give you lessons because we love you. And because you love Mainutung, you shall bring him some deermeat as soon as the season is open. How very, very pretty your lodge looks.”