sunshine travelled, and in the sun the bright, tuneful birds made lively
the responsive world. Sometimes an eagle swooped down the stream; again
and again, hawks, and flocks of pigeons which frequented the lonely
groves on the river-side, made vocal the world of air; flocks of wild
ducks, or geese, went whirring down the long spaces of water between the
trees on either bank; and some one with a fiddle or a concertina made
musical the evening, while the singing voices of rough habitants rang
through the air.

It was all spirited; it smelt good; it felt good; but it was not for
Carnac. When he had a revolt against anything in life, the grim storm
scenes of winter in the shanties under the trees and the snow-swept hills
came to his mind's eye. The summer life of the river, and what is called
"running the river," had for him great charms. The smell of hundreds of
thousands of logs in the river, the crushed bark, the slimy ooze were all
suggestive of life in the making. But the savage seclusion of the wild
life in winter repelled his senses. Besides, the lumber business meant
endless figures and measurements in stuffy offices and he retreated from
it all.

He had an artistic bent. From a small child he had had it, and it grew
with his years. He wanted to paint, and he painted; he wanted to sculp
in clay, and he sculped in clay; but all the time he was conscious it was
the things he had seen and the life he had lived which made his painting
and his sculpture worth while. It was absurd that a man of his great
outdoor capacity should be the slave of a temperamental quality, and yet
it was so. It was no good for his father to condemn, or his mother to
mourn, he went his own way.

He had seen much of Junia Shale in these years and had grown fond of her,