The wild life of the river filled him with speechless delight. Sometimes he saw the waters break and gleam at the leap of a mighty salmon--the king fish of the North on his spring rush to the headwaters where he would spawn and die--and often the canoe sent flocks of waterfowl into flight. Ben dimly felt that on the tree-clad shores larger, more glorious living creatures were standing, hiding, watching the canoe glide past. The thought thrilled him. Late afternoon, and they worked closer to the shore. They were watching for a place to land. But because the shadows of twilight were already falling, the forest itself was hardly more vivid to their eyes. Once it seemed to Ben that he saw the underbrush move and waver at the water's edge, and his heart leaped; but whatever stirred kept itself concealed. And now, in the gray of twilight, Ezram saw the place to land. It was a small lagoon into which a creek emptied, and beyond was an open meadow, found so often and so unexpectedly in the North woods. Swiftly Ben turned the canoe into shore. Ezram climbed out and made fast, and so busy was he with his work that he did not glance at Ben, otherwise he might have beheld a phenomenon that would have been of keen interest to the alienist, Forest. His young charge had suddenly grown quite pale. Ben himself was neither aware of this nor of the fact that his heart was hammering wildly in his breast and his blood racing, like wild rivers, through his veins: he was only thrilled and held by a sense of vast, impending developments. Every nerve tingled and thrilled, and why he did not know. Ezram began to unload; but now, his blue eyes shining, he began a covert watch of his young companion. He saw the man from prison suddenly catch his breath in inexpressible awe and his eye kindle with a light of unknown source. A great question was shaping itself in Ben's mind, but as yet he could not find the answer. All at once Ben knew this place. Here was nothing strange or new: it was all as he had known it would be in his inmost heart. All of it spoke to him with familiar voice, seemingly to welcome him as a son is welcomed after long absence. There was nothing here that had not been known and beloved of old. Vivid memories, bright as lightning, swept through him.