The eggs and butter and milk for which he had rowed across the lake were
covered with green leaves under one of the boat-benches.

Straight above him, mass on mass, rose those protruding ribs of the
earth, the rocks. He lay back in the boat's stern and gazed at their
summit of pinetrees and ferns. Bunches of gigantic ferns sprouted from
every crevice, and not a leaf of the array but was worth half a
lifetime's study. Yet Adam's eye wandered aimlessly over it all, as if
it gave him no pleasure. Nor did he seem to wish that a little figure
would bend from the summit, half swallowed in greenness and made a
vegetable mermaid from the waist downward, to call to him. He was so
haggard the freckles stood in bold relief upon his face and neck.

The hiss of a boat and the sound of row-locks failed to move him from
his listless attitude. He did, however, turn his eyes and set his jaws
in the direction of the passing oarsman. Louis Satanette was all in
white flannel, and flush-faced like a cream-pink rose with pleasant
exhilaration. He held his oars poised and let his boat run slowly past
Adam.

"What have you the matter?" he exclaimed, with sincere anxiety.

"Oh, it's naught," said Adam. "I'm just weary, weary."

"You have been gone a very, very long time," said Louis, using the
double Canadian adjective. "Mrs. Macgregor is on the lookout."

Adam thought of her when she was _not_ on the lookout. He also thought
of her tidying things about the camp in the morning, and singing as he
pulled from the bay. Perhaps she was on another sort of lookout then.