But Jean Baptiste had left his place in the front rank, and gone to the rear, to the very remotest rear, where there were no people and neither sight nor sound of war, where the forest was his hospital and Nature his physician. What wonder that he grew to love the quiet retreat, and to wish that he might never hear the battle-call again? By night he slept a dreamless sleep, undisturbed by the cry of the loon, the hoot of the owl, the wail of the lynx, or any call of birds or beasts that hunt by night. He was up with the dawn, and out in the open, refreshed and strong, with bright eyes and a joyous heart, breathing the fragrant morning air, rejoicing in the free movement of every limb, his whole being expanding in the growing light, and leaping up to meet the rising sun. To Jean the wilderness was as the garden of the Lord. All the trees that he loved were there, all the wild flowers of the season, with ferns and mosses of many kinds; there were bubbling springs and clear streams, shallow ponds and deep lakes, dense thickets and open glades, narrow glens and broad valleys, low ridges and high mountains, whence he could look out upon a sea of forest-clad hills stretching away and beyond to meet the circle of the sky. But it was the lake by the cabin that Jean loved most of all, and there he spent many hours of every day in his birch canoe; plying long strokes of the paddle; skimming along here and there; exploring creeks and bays or floating in the shade of a rocky point, at the mouth of a stream or by a sunken log, while he cast a fly upon the water to lure the wary trout. When the lake was calm he could see not only the rocks and trees of the shore, but his own thoughts and feelings reflected there; for it was a mirror to his soul. When a wind came up and ruffled the surface with little dancing waves, his thoughts seemed to dance and sparkle in their turn; and he would sing the song of the voyageur to the hum of the breeze and the lapping of the waves. When a white squall came, raising great waves capped with foam, the soul of Jean Baptiste was stirred to its depths and rose up to meet the foe; as with a strong grip on the tough paddle he held the canoe to the wind and rode out the storm; mounting on the crest of the waves, beating down into the trough, splashed and buffeted, rocked and tossed; but all the time pushing on toward the lee shore, where at last he lay in calm water, serenely watching the tempest as it passed.