But the words were not more than out of my mouth when I understood. I saw the narrow entrance to a small creek, emptying between high banks. “Oh!” said I. “I beg your pardon, Nicole; I see you know what you’re about all right!” He chuckled behind unsmiling lips. “_They’ll_ go up the Kenneticook in their canoes,” said he. “We’ll hide the boat here, where they’ll not find it; and we’ll cut across the ridge to the Englishman’s. Quicker, too!” The creek was narrow and winding, but deep for the first two hundred yards of its course; and Nicole, he knew every turn and shallow. We beached the boat where she could not be seen from the river, tied her to a tree on the bank above so that she might not get away at high tide, and then plunged into the dense young fir woods that clothed the lower reaches of the Piziquid shore. There was no trail, but it was plain to me that Nicole well knew the way. “You’ve gone this way before, Nicole?” said I. “Yes, monsieur, a few times,” he answered. I considered for a moment, pushing aside the wet, prickly branches as I went. Then— “What is her name, Nicole?” I asked. “Julie, Master Paul,” said he softly. “Ah,” said I, “then you had reasons of your own for coming with me to-night?” “Not so!” he answered, a rebuking sobriety in his voice. “None, save my love for you and your house, Master Paul. _She_ is in no peril. She is far from here, safe in Isle St. Jean this month past.” “I beg your pardon, my friend,” said I, at once. “I know your love. I said it but to banter you, for I had not guessed that you had been led captive, Nicole.” “A man’s way, Master Paul, when a woman wills!” said he cheerfully. But I had no more thought of it than to be glad it had taught Nicole Brun a short path through the woods to Kenneticook. What strange tricks do these our tangled makeups play us! I know that that night, during that swift half-hour’s run through the woods, my whole brain, my every purpose, was concentrated upon the rescue of George Anderson. The price I was prepared to pay was life, no less. Yet all the shaping emotion of it—sharp enough, one would think, to cut its lines forever on a man’s face, to say nothing of his brain—has bequeathed to me no least etching of remembrance. Of great things all I recall is that the name “Yvonne” seemed ever just within my lips—so that once or twice I thought I had spoken it aloud. But my senses were very wide awake, taking full advantage, perhaps, of the heart’s preoccupation. My eyes, ears, nose, touch, they busied themselves to note a thousand trifles—and these are what come back to me now. Such idle, idle things alone remain, out of that race with death.