that I had said it in my slumber. It is pitiful that a man should be
so infirm of will that he need cosset his resolution in this fashion,
and I kicked the dogs from the door of my cabin, and went out to meet
the world in a bad humor.

It was a still world in the great sky and water spaces, but a noisy one
upon the shore. Early as it was--the night dusk was still
lingering--the kettles were simmering, and the Indians decked for a
holiday. The sense of approaching action was powder to my nostrils,
and added to my spleen; so though I went down upon the beach, and
joined Cadillac and his officers, I was but surly company, and soon
turned my back upon them, to stare off at the lake.

It was a breezeless morning, and the lake was without ripple. It lay
like one of the metal mirrors that we sell the Indians, a lustreless
gray sheet that threw back twisted pictures. I looked off at the east,
and thought of the dull leagues that lay behind me, and the uncounted
ones before, and I realized that the morning air was cold, and that I
hated the dark, secret water that led through this strange land. Yet,
even as I scowled at it, the disk of the sun climbed over the island's
rim, and laid a shining pathway through the gray,--a pathway that ended
at my feet.

I felt my pulse quicken. After all, it was a fair world, and the air,
though keen, was a cordial. I let my gaze travel up that shining,
glimmering track, and while I looked it was suddenly flecked with
canoes. Long and brown, they swung down toward me like strong-winged
birds upheld by the path of the sunrise.

I looked back at the Indians. They, too, had seen the canoes, but they