If she had known what those distant hills held for her boy--if her
intuition had been knowledge--she would never have let him go.




III

AN ADVENTURE WITH A BEAR


The boat turned out into the broad channel and into Goose Bay. There
was little or no wind, and when the sun broke gloriously over the
white-capped peaks of the Mealy Mountains it shone upon a sea as
smooth as a mill pond, with scarcely a ripple to disturb it. The men
worked laboriously and silently at their oars. A harbour seal pushed
its head above the water, looked at the toiling men curiously for a
moment, then disappeared below the surface, leaving an eddy where it
had been. Gulls soared overhead, their white wings and bodies looking
very pure and beautiful in the sunlight. High in the air a flock of
ducks passed to the southward. From somewhere in the distance came the
honk of a wild goose. The air was laden with the scent of the great
forest of spruce and balsam fir, whose dark green barrier came down
from the rock-bound, hazy hills in the distance to the very water's
edge, where tamarack groves, turned yellow by the early frosts,
reflected the sunlight like settings of rich gold.

"'Tis fine! 'tis grand!" exclaimed Bob at last, as he rested a moment
on his oars to drink in the scene and breathe deeply the rare,