His strength had returned. He did not feel the
whiplike sting of boughs that struck him across the face. He scarcely
looked at the little cabin of logs when they passed it. Deep down in his
heart he called upon the Virgin to curse those two--Marie Cummins and
Clarry O'Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out
of home, out of everything he had possessed, and who were beating him now
through perfidy and trickery.
His face and his hands were scratched and bleeding when they came to the
narrow waterway, half lake and half river, which let into the Blind Loon.
Another minute and they were racing again through the water. From the
mouth of the channel he saw O'Grady and the Chippewayan a quarter of a
mile ahead. Five miles beyond them was the fourth portage. It was hidden
now by a thick pall of smoke rising slowly into the clear sky. Neither
Jan nor the Indian had caught the pungent odors of burning forests in the
air, and they knew that it was a fresh fire. Never in the years that Jan
could remember had that portage been afire, and he wondered if this was
another trick of O'Grady's. The fire spread rapidly as they advanced. It
burst forth in a dozen places along the shore of the lake, sending up
huge volumes of black smoke riven by lurid tongues of flame. O'Grady and
his canoe became less and less distinct. Finally they disappeared
entirely in the lowering clouds of the conflagration.
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