As the ashen paddles bend,
And the crews carouse at Rupert's House,
At the sullen winter's end.
But my days are done where the lean wolves run,
And I ripple no more the path
Where the gray geese race 'cross the red moon's face
From the white wind's Arctic wrath."

The suspense was broken. The two men's voices, rising in their
crude strength, sending forth into the still wilderness both
triumph and defiance, brought the quick flush of living back into
Josephine's face. She guessed why Jean had started his chant--to
give her courage. She KNEW why Philip had responded. And now Jean
swept up beside them, a smile on his thin, dark face.

"The Good Virgin preserve us, M'sieur, but our voices are like
those of two beasts," he cried.

"Great, true, fighting beasts," whispered Josephine under her
breath. "How I would hate almost--"

She had suddenly flushed to the roots of her hair.

"What?" asked Philip.

"To hear men sing like women," she finished.

As swiftly as he had come up Jean and his canoe had sped on ahead
of them.