Night was coming on as Jean turned the prow of his canoe down the bay; soon it was quite dark; and only the glimmer of stars on the water and the dense blackness on either side showed the way. Silently the paddle rose and fell; and on went the canoe through the darkness; until at the last turn, where the bay joined the main body of the lake, a bright light appeared over the trees; and the moon rose, making a shining path across the water. With powerful strokes Jean shot the canoe along the bright way to the very end; and plunged again into the shadow near the shore. Presently the light craft touched the landing-place, where Jean stepped out, pulled the canoe out of the water, turned it bottom up on the shore, placed the paddle underneath, and went up to the cabin. After having fasted all day, Jean was hungry as a bear, and was glad to find in his pack the food that his good mother had provided. By the light of a candle he ate his evening meal; and then, spreading his blankets on a bearskin in the corner, and with his knapsack as a pillow, he lay down to sleep. "Ah!" he said to himself, as the tension of muscle and nerve was relaxed for the first time since the early morning. "How tired I am! I did not think that I could be so tired. How good it is to rest at the close of a long day! And such a day! _Mon Dieu_, but it was a day, a good day!" "What, Jean Baptiste?" said his other self. "A good day, you call it, when you have fought like a beast and killed a fellow-man, a brother, one who might have been your friend! Do you know what you are saying? Wake up, Jean." "Wake up? But no, I prefer to rest, to sleep--a long, long sleep. And it was a good day. I have lived. Yes, lived." "But what of Pamphile?" said his good angel, in a far-away voice. "Pamphile? Pamphile?" murmured Jean, as he went into the land of dreams. "That fellow with the pretty face? He got it, did he not? Got what he deserved. Regret it? No! A good fight! A good day!" *CHAPTER XXIII* *THE CURE* Already the healing power of the wilderness had begun its work, and as the days passed Jean gradually recovered the tone and balance of mind that had been so much disturbed. Without knowing it he had been under a strain for a long time, that tension of brain and nerve so characteristic of modern life, which the strongest and most ambitious must endure, when they forsake the old ways and go out into the unknown to make new paths wherein the feet of generations to come may safely tread. In the vanguard of progress they do the work of pioneers; in breaking new ground they are themselves broken; and the army of civilisation marches on over their graves.