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Updated: May 3, 2025
It was then that he took out one by one the precious things that were in Marette's little pack. He worshipped these things. The dress and each of the little shoes he had wrapped in the velvety inner bark of the birch tree. He protected them from wet and storm. Had emergency called for it, he would have fought for them.
He whipped Carter's automatic out of its holster and, covering Pelly and the special constable, relieved them of their guns. Behind him he heard Marette's voice, calm and triumphant, "Lock them in the cell, Mr. Kent!" He did not look at her, but swung his gun on Pelly and the special constable, and they backed through the door into the cell. Carter had not moved.
For he believed, now that the thought came to him like a dagger stroke, that this was so. Her act in freeing him had brought about the final climax, and as a result of it, Kedsty was dead. He went to the foot of the stair. Quietly, in his shoeless feet, he began to climb them. He wanted to cry out Marette's name even before he came to the top.
Only when a scow became unmanageable, or hit the Dragon's Tooth, or made the right-hand channel instead of the left, was there tragedy. There was that delightful little note of laughter in Marette's throat when Kent told her that. "You mean, Jeems, that if one of three possible things doesn't happen, we'll get through safely?" "None of them is possible with us," he corrected himself quickly.
And over the threshold Marette's hands dropped from Kent, and Kent stepped back, so that in the light they faced each other, and in that moment came the marvelous readjustment from shock and disbelief to a glorious certainty. Again Kent's brain was as clear as the day he faced death at the head of the Chute. And swift as a hot barb a fear leaped into him as his eyes met the eyes of the girl.
He twisted himself up, freeing himself from the undertow. Twenty feet ahead of him thirty he caught a glimpse of a white arm and then of Marette's face, before she disappeared in a wall of froth. Into that froth he shot after her. He came out of it blinded, groping wildly for her, crying out her name.
He was positive he heard a low cry, a choking, sobbing cry, only barely audible, and that it came from down the stair. No longer hesitating, he moved quickly to Marette's room and looked in. His first glimpse was of the bed. It had not been used. The room was empty.
Then the sickness got him, and for ten weeks those two were together, each fighting to save the other's life, and they won out. But the glory of it was with the stranger. He was going west. The constable was going south. They shook hands and parted." Marette's fingers tightened on Kent's arm. And Kent went on. "And the constable never forgot, Gray Goose.
"We've a tight little scow, we're not going to hit the rock, and we'll make the left-hand channel so smoothly you won't know when it happens." He smiled at her with splendid confidence. "I've been through it a hundred times," he said. He listened. Then, suddenly, he drew out his watch. It was a quarter of four. Marette's ears caught what he heard. In the air was a low, trembling murmur.
He did not feel like a fugitive, but as one who has come into a great triumph. He sensed no uncertainty or doubt. The river lay ahead, and for him the river had become the soul and the promise of life. It was Marette's river and his river, and in a little while they would be on it. And Marette would then tell him about Kedsty. He was sure of that.
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