The next morning was gray and transparent: a hemisphere of mist filled
with light; a world of vapor palpitating with some indwelling spirit.
That lonesome lap of country opposite Fort St. John could scarcely be
defined. Scraps of its dawning spring color showed through the mobile
winding and ascending veil. Trees rose out of the lowlands between the
fort and the falls.

Van Corlaer was in the gorge, watching that miracle worked every day in
St. John River. The tide was racing inland. The steep rapids within
their throat of rock were clear of fog. Foam is the flower of water; and
white petal after white petal was swept under by the driving waves. As
the tide rose the tumult of falls ceased. The channel filled. All rocks
were drowned. For a brief time another ship could have passed up that
natural lock, as La Tour's ship had passed on the cream-smooth current
at flood tide the day before.

Van Corlaer could not see its ragged sails around the breast of rock,
but the hammering of its repairers had been in his ears since dawn; and
through the subsiding wash of water he now heard men's voices.

The Indians whose village he had joined were that morning breaking up
camp to begin their spring pilgrimage down the coast along various
fishing haunts; for agriculture was a thing unknown to these savages.
They were a seafaring people in canoes. At that time even invading
Europeans had gained little mastery of the soil. Camp and fortress were
on the same side of the river. Lounging braves watched indifferently
some figures wading fog from the fort, perhaps bringing them a farewell
word, perhaps forbidding their departure. The Indian often humored his
invader's feudal airs, but he never owned the mastery of any white man.
Squaws took down cone-shaped tents, while their half-naked babies