reached the bow, where he paused, one foot lifted to the gunwale just
above the emblem of the painted star. Immediately a dead silence fell.
Groups shifted, drew apart, and together again, like the slow
agglomeration of sawdust on the surface of water, until at last they
formed in a semicircle of staring, whose centre was the bow of the
canoe and the stranger from Kettle Portage. The men scowled, the women
regarded him with a half-fearful curiosity.

Virginia Albret shivered in the shock of this sudden electric
polarity. The man seemed alone against a sullen, unexplained
hostility. The desperation she had thought to read but a moment before
had vanished utterly, leaving in its place a scornful indifference and
perhaps more than a trace of recklessness. He was ripe for an
outbreak. She did not in the least understand, but she knew it from
the depths of her woman's instinct, and unconsciously her sympathies
flowed out to this man, alone without a greeting where all others came
to their own.

For perhaps a full sixty seconds the new-comer stood uncertain what he
should do, or perhaps waiting for some word or act to tip the balance
of his decision. One after another those on shore felt the insolence
of his stare, and shifted uneasily. Then his deliberate scrutiny rose
to the group by the cannon. Virginia caught her breath sharply. In
spite of herself she could not turn away. The stranger's eye crossed
her own. She saw the hard look fade into pleased surprise. Instantly
his hat swept the gunwale of the canoe. He stepped magnificently
ashore. The crisis was over. Not a word had been spoken.