The wise beast dug his calked shoes through the deep slush and
sprang for the bank, throwing himself into the collar at every.
leap. Just as they reached land a cake of ice tilted beneath their
weight and sank, leaving a space of open water.

Samuel Chapdelaine turned about. "We are the last to cross this
year," said he. And he halted the horse to breathe before putting
him at the hill.

After following the main road a little way they left it for another
which plunged into the woods. It was scarcely more than a rough
trail, still beset with roots, turning and twisting in all
directions to avoid boulders and stumps. Rising to a plateau where
it wound back and forth through burnt lands it gave an occasional
glimpse of steep hillside, of the rocks piled in the channel of the
frozen rapid, the higher and precipitous opposing slope above the
fall, and at the last resumed a desolate way amid fallen trees and
blackened rampikes.

The little stony hillocks they passed through seemed to close in
behind them; the burnt lands gave place to darkly-crowding spruces
and firs; now and then they caught momentary sight of the distant
mountains on the Riviere Alec; and soon the travellers discerned a
clearing in tile forest, a mounting column of smoke, the bark of a
dog.

"They will be glad to see you again, Maria," said her father. "They
have been lonesome for you, every one of them."