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There was only one who could sing that verse just that way. With two swift heaves of the paddle he lifted his canoe into the overhanging bushes, noiselessly leaped ashore, and pulled his canoe up the bank after him. Down the river still came the song, and ever nearer. "O fils du roi tu es mechant, En roulant ma boule." The doctor cautiously parted the bushes and looked out.
Upon a point below the first rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning and their pipe of peace. When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to the song of the river, "En roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant, ma boule!"
The canoe had now caught its speed. Conjuror's House was dropping astern. The rhythm of the song quickened as the singers told of how the king's son had aimed at the black duck but killed the white. "Ah fils du roi, tu es mèchant, En roulant ma boule, Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent, Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." "Way wik! way wik!" commanded Me-en-gan, sharply, from the bow.
"Forward, then, mes amis!" cried Du Mesne, setting his own paddle-blade deep into the flood. "En roulant ma boule, roulant " Again the chorus rose, and again the hardy craft leaped onward into the unexplored. Day after day following this the journey was resumed, and day after day the travelers with eager eyes witnessed a prospect of continual change.
When lunch was over, and we had again set forth upon the Whi-Whi, I asked Ruth to sing an old French-Canadian song which she had once before sung to us. Many a time the woods of the West had resounded to the notes of 'En Roulant ma Boule', as the 'voyageurs' traversed the long paths of the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Mississippi; brave light-hearted fellows, whose singing days were over.
It was not considered worth while even to watch him. Should he escape, unarmed as he was, sure death by starvation awaited him in the land of dread. As he entered the settlement he struck up an air. "Le fils du roi s'en va chassant, En roulant ma boule, Avec son grand fusil d'argent, Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."
Guilt was in David's heart, but there was no sting of venom in St. Pierre's words, and he was laughing at them now, as though what he saw were a pretty joke and amused him. "Late hours and shady bowers! I say it should be a love song or something livelier," he cried, closing the door behind him and coming toward them. "Why not En Roulant ma Boule, my sweet Jeanne? You know that is my favorite."
"So long, fellows," called out Rob over his shoulder as he put his paddle to work. "I'm going to beat you all through if I'm bow paddle in the first boat I'll be ahead of everybody else. En roulant, ma boule!" The Mary Ann, swinging fully into the current, went off dipping and gliding down the gentle incline of the stream. "Don't go too fast, Moise," called out Alex.
"We'd better drop down a few miles farther before we make camp," said he. "En avant, Moise. En roulant, ma boule!" Moise turned to his paddle and broke into song gaily as they once more headed down the stream. They did not tarry again until the sun was behind the western ridges.
For a space there was silence, and then, from far out in the black shadow of the river, rolled back the great voice of St. Pierre Boulain singing the wild river chant, "En Roulant ma Boule." At the open window he listened. It seemed to him that from far over the river, where the giant raft lay, there came a faint answer to the words of the song,
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