Trial by water

Jean Baptiste Chabrier listened, with an odd gleam in his dark, quiet eyes, to the roaring of the rapids. A dangerous place, those rapids! Who knew better than Jean Baptiste, who for three years had made his home within the sound of Assin-nebah's voice? Assin-nebah—that was as the Crees said it; "rocky water" it meant in the English. Chabrier's mild and thoughtful gaze rested upon the figure of the girl seated in the middle of the canoe. He could not see her face, for she was looking ahead, just as he was. There had been a time when she would have faced Jean Baptiste, her husband; but now she looked toward the man in the bow—big, blond, gay Les Walters, the sawyer. For just an instant the odd gleam in Jean Baptiste's eyes flamed up angrily. In the previous spring he had invited Les, who had never killed a moose, to come up to his camp in the hunting season. Les had accepted, and now he was here. He had been here for ten days, or perhaps more. Jean Baptiste did not keep accurate check of the time. It seemed many days—too many days. Jean Baptiste had seen what had happened, for his eyes were sharp with love. It was a fool who said that love is blind. Love lends a jealous keenness to the vision, and Jean Baptiste was very much in love with his pretty wife. That was why he knew that she was falling in love with Les Walters. The big sawyer was everything that Jean Baptiste was not. Les was tall and blond and smiling, full of broad, quick jests and subtle flatterings. Jean Baptiste was small, for all his strength, and dark and grave. He spoke softly and infrequently, and his adoration for Charlotte was in his heart and in his eyes, not upon his tongue. Les was a novelty, and Charlotte was a woman. To Jean Baptiste, in whom stirred the romantic blood of the gay voyageurs , there was given a certain understanding of women. He knew their love of that which is new and different. He had not blamed Charlotte. He had merely waited until he was sure she would be ready to decide between her husband and the other man; and now they were coming swiftly to the place where, ready or not, the woman must make her decision, instantly, once…