But nothing would induce Pierre to engage in any such business. Nor would he touch his breakfast while Adrian’s knife was busy. He sat apart, looking anywhere rather than toward his mate, and talking over his shoulder to him in a strangely subdued voice. “Adrian.” “Well?” “Most done?” “Nearly.” “What you going to put on it?” “I’ve been wondering. Think this: ‘To the Memory of My Unknown Brother.’” “Wh-a-a-t!” Adrian repeated the inscription. “He was no kin to you.” “We are all kin. It’s all one world--God’s world. All the people and all these forests, and the creatures in them. I tell you, I’ve never heard a sermon that touched me as the sight of this grave in the wilderness has touched me. I mean to be a better, kinder man, because of it. Margot was right--none of us has a right to his own self. She told me often that I should go home to my own folks and make everything right with them: then, if I could, come back and live in the woods, somewhere, if I felt I must. But I don’t feel that way now. I want to get back and go to work. I want to live so that when I die--like that poor chap yonder--somebody will have been the better for my life. Pshaw! why do I talk to you like this? Anyway, I’ll set this slab in place, and then--” Pierre rose, and still without looking Adrian’s way, pushed the new canoe into the water. He had carefully pitched it, on the day before, with a mixture of the old pork grease and gum from the trees, so that there need be no delay at starting. Adrian finished his work, lettered the slab with a coal from the fire, and rewatered the wild flowers he had already planted. “Aren’t you going to eat breakfast first?” “Not in a graveyard,” answered Pierre, with a solemnity that checked Adrian’s desire to smile. A last reverent attention, a final clearing of all rubbish from the spot, and he, too, stepped into the canoe and picked up his paddle. They had passed the rapids and reached a smooth stretch of the river where they had camped, and now pulled steadily and easily away, once more upon their journey south. But not till they had put a considerable distance between themselves and that woodland grave, would Pierre consent to stop and eat the food that Adrian had prepared. Even then, he restricted the amount to be consumed, remarking with doleful conviction: “We’re going to be starved before we reach Donovan’s. The food stick burnt off and dropped into the fire last night.” Adrian remembered that his mate had spoken of it at the time, when by some carelessness they had not secured the crotched sapling on which they hung their birch kettle.