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Financial Management: Principles and Applications, 11e (Titman)
Chapter 10 Stock Valuation

10.1 Common Stock

1) The XYZ Company, whose common stock is currently selling for $40 per share, is expected to
pay a $2.00 dividend in the coming year. If investors believe that the expected rate of return on
XYZ is 14%, what growth rate in dividends must be expected?
A) 5%
B) 14%
C) 9%
D) 6%
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

2) The expected rate of return on a share of common stock whose dividends are growing at a
constant rate (g) is which of the following?
A) (D1 + g)/Vc
B) D1/Vc + g
C) D1/g
D) D1/Vc
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

3) Green Company's common stock is currently selling at $24.00 per share. The company
recently paid dividends of $1.92 per share and projects growth at a rate of 4%. At this rate, what
is the stock's expected rate of return?
A) 4.08%
B) 8.00%
C) 12.00%
D) 8.80%
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

1
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
4) Common stockholders are essentially:
A) creditors of the firm.
B) managers of the firm.
C) owners of the firm.
D) all of the above.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: voting rights
Principles: Principle 2: There Is a Risk-Return Tradeoff

5) Butler, Inc.'s return on equity is 17% and management retains 75% of earnings for investment
purposes. Based on this information, what will be the firm's growth rate?
A) 4.25%
B) 22.67%
C) 44.12%
D) 12.75%
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

6) If a company has a return on equity of 25% and wants a growth rate of 10%, how much of
ROE should be retained?
A) 40%
B) 50%
C) 60%
D) 70%
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

7) ________ gives minority shareholders more power to elect board of directors.

A) Preemptive right
B) Majority voting
C) Proxy fights
D) Cumulative voting
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: voting rights
Principles: Principle 4: Market Prices Reflect Information

2
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
8) You are evaluating the purchase of Cellars, Inc. common stock that just paid a dividend of
$1.80. You expect the dividend to grow at a rate of 12% for the next three years. You plan to
hold the stock for three years and then sell it. You estimate that a required rate of return of 17.5%
will be adequate compensation for this investment. Calculate the present value of the expected
dividends. Round to the nearest $0.10.
A) $4.90
B) $11.50
C) $9.80
D) $6.10
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: agency
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

9) You are evaluating the purchase of Holdings, Inc. common stock that just paid a dividend of
$1.80, and the dividend will be $1.80 per share per year for the next ten years. You plan to hold
the stock for three years and then sell it. You expect the price of the company's stock to rise to
$51.50 at the end of your three-year holding period. You estimate that a required rate of return of
17.5% will be adequate compensation for this investment. Calculate the present value of the
expected future stock price. Round to the nearest $.25.
A) $64.00
B) $55.25
C) $31.75
D) $103.00
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

10) CEO naming friends to the board of directors and paying them more than the norm is an
example of the:
A) agency problem.
B) preemptive right.
C) majority voting feature.
D) proxy fights.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: agency
Principles: Principle 4: Market Prices Reflect Information

3
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
11) Little Feet Shoe Co. just paid a dividend of $1.65 on its common stock. This company's
dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate of 3% indefinitely. If the required rate of return
on this stock is 11%, compute the current value of per share of LFS stock.
A) $20.63
B) $21.24
C) $15.00
D) $55.00
Answer: B
Diff: 1
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

12) Marshall Manufacturing has common stock which paid a dividend of $1.00 a share last year.
You expect the stock to grow at 5% per year. If the appropriate rate of return on this stock is
12%, how much are you willing to pay for the stock today?
A) $13.00
B) $15.00
C) $17.00
D) $19.00
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

13) Marble Corporation's ROE is 17%. Their dividend payout ratio is 20%. The last dividend,
just paid, was $2.58. If dividends are expected to grow by the company's sustainable growth rate
indefinitely, what is the current value of Marble common stock if its required return is 18%?
A) $14.33
B) $18.27
C) $47.67
D) $66.61
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

4
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
14) Fris B. Corporation stock is currently selling for $42.86. It is expected to pay a dividend of
$3.00 at the end of the year. Dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate of 3% indefinitely.
Compute the required rate of return on FBC stock.
A) 10%
B) 33%
C) 7%
D) 4.3%
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

15) You are evaluating the purchase of Cool Toys, Inc. common stock that just paid a dividend
of $1.80. You expect the dividend to grow at a rate of 12%, indefinitely. You estimate that a
required rate of return of 17.5% will be adequate compensation for this investment. Assuming
that your analysis is correct, what is the most that you would be willing to pay for the common
stock if you were to purchase it today? Round to the nearest $.01.
A) $36.65
B) $91.23
C) $51.55
D) $74.82
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

16) A stock currently sells for $63 per share, and the required return on the stock is 10%.
Assuming a growth rate of 5%, calculate the stock's last dividend paid.
A) $1
B) $3
C) $5
D) $7
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

5
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
17) A decrease in the ________ will cause an increase in common stock value.
A) growth rate
B) required rate of return
C) last paid dividend
D) both B and C
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

18) Acme Consolidated has a return on equity of 12%. If Acme distributes 60% of earnings as
dividends, then we would expect the common shareholders' investment in the firm and the value
of the common stock to grow by:
A) 4.80%.
B) 7.20%.
C) 12%.
D) 6%.
Answer: A
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

19) An investor is contemplating the purchase of common stock at the beginning of this year and
to hold the stock for one year. The investor expects the year-end dividend to be $2.00 and
expects a year-end price for the stock of $40. If this investor's required rate of return is 10%, then
the value of the stock to this investor is:
A) $36.36.
B) $38.18.
C) $33.06.
D) $34.88.
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

6
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
20) A firm just paid $2.00 on its common stock and expects to continue paying dividends, which
are expected to grow 5% each year, from now to infinity. If the required rate of return for this
stock is 9%, then the value of the stock is:
A) $50.00.
B) $40.00.
C) $54.50.
D) $52.50.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

21) An issue of common stock currently sells for $40.00 per share, has an expected dividend to
be paid at the end of the year of $2.00 per share, and has an expected growth rate to infinity of
5% per year. The expected rate of return on this security is:
A) 5%.
B) 10.25%.
C) 13.11%.
D) 10%.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

22) White Sink, Inc. just paid a dividend of $5.55 per share on its common stock, and the firm is
expected to generate constant growth of 12.25% over the foreseeable future. The common stock
is currently selling for $73.75 per share. The firm's dividend payout ratio is 40%, and White's
marginal tax rate is 40%. What is the rate of return that common stockholders expect? Round to
the nearest 0.1%.
A) 8.5%
B) 20.7%
C) 15.5%
D) 4.8%
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

7
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
23) KDP's most recent dividend was $2.00 per share and is selling today in the market for $70.
The dividend is expected to grow at a rate of 7% per year for the foreseeable future. If the market
return is 10% on investments with comparable risk, should you purchase the stock?
A) No, because the stock is overpriced $1.33.
B) No, because the stock is overpriced $3.33.
C) Yes, because the stock is underpriced $1.33.
D) Yes, because the stock is underpriced $3.33.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

24) An issue of common stock currently sells for $50.00 per share, has an expected dividend to
be paid at the end of the year of $2.50 per share, and has an expected growth rate to infinity of
5% per year. If investors' required rate of return for this particular security is 12% per year, then
this security is:
A) overvalued and offering an expected return higher than the required return.
B) undervalued and offering an expected return higher than the required return.
C) overvalued and offering an expected return lower than the required return.
D) undervalued and offering an expected return lower than the required return.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

25) You are considering the purchase of Miller Manufacturing, Inc.'s common stock. The stock
is selling for $21.00 per share. The next dividend is expected to be $2.10, and you expect the
dividend to keep growing at a constant rate. If the stock is returning 15%, calculate the growth
rate of dividends.
A) 3%
B) 5%
C) 8%
D) 10%
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

8
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
26) ABC, Inc. just paid a dividend of $2. ABC expects dividends to grow at 10%. The return on
stocks like ABC, Inc. is typically around 12%. What is the most you would pay for a share of
ABC stock?
A) $100
B) $110
C) $120
D) $130
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

27) Marjen, Inc. just paid a dividend of $5. Marjen stock currently sells for $73.57. The return on
stocks like Marjen, Inc. is around 10%. What is the implied growth rate of dividends.
A) 1%
B) 3%
C) 5%
D) 7%
Answer: B
Diff: 3
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

28) Which investor incurs the greatest risk?

A) Mortgage bondholder
B) Preferred stockholder
C) Common stockholder
D) Debenture bondholder
Answer: C
Diff: 1
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: market required yield
Principles: Principle 2: There Is a Risk-Return Tradeoff

29) What allows common stockholders the right to cast a number of votes equal to the number of
directors being elected?
A) The majority voting provision
B) The casting feature
C) The cumulative voting provision
D) The proxy method
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: voting rights
Principles: Principle 4: Market Prices Reflect Information

9
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
30) The shareholder can cast all votes for a single candidate or split them among various
candidates through:
A) proxy fights.
B) cumulative voting.
C) call provisions.
D) majority voting.
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: voting rights
Principles: Principle 4: Market Prices Reflect Information

31) You are considering the purchase of common stock that just paid a dividend of $6.50 per
share. Security analysts agree with top management in projecting steady growth of 12% in
dividends and earnings over the foreseeable future. Your required rate of return for stocks of this
type is 18%. How much should you expect to pay for this stock?
A) $86
B) $94
C) $108
D) $121
E) $242
Answer: D
Diff: 1
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 4: Market Prices Reflect Information

32) You are considering the purchase of Wahoo, Inc. The firm just paid a dividend of $4.20 per
share. The stock is selling for $115 per share. Security analysts agree with top management in
projecting steady growth of 12% in dividends and earnings over the foreseeable future. Your
required rate of return for stocks of this type is 17.5%. If you were to purchase and hold the stock
for three years, what would the expected dividends be worth today?
A) $12.60
B) $9.21
C) $17.12
D) $15.55
E) $11.46
Answer: E
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

10
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
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33) A share of common stock just paid a dividend of $3.25 per share. The expected long-run
growth rate for this stock is 18%. If investors require a rate of return of 24%, what should the
price of the stock be?
A) $57.51
B) $62.25
C) $71.86
D) $63.92
E) $44.94
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

34) Common stockholders expect greater returns than bondholders because:

A) they have no legal right to receive dividends.
B) they bear greater risk.
C) in the event of liquidation, they are only entitled to receive any cash that is left after all
creditors are paid.
D) all of the above.
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: NYSE
Principles: Principle 2: There Is a Risk-Return Tradeoff

35) WSU Inc. is a young company that does not yet pay a dividend. You believe that the
company will begin to pay dividends 5 years from now, and that the company will then be worth
$50 per share. If your required rate of return on this risky stock is 20%, what is the stock worth
today?
A) $40
B) $10
C) $20.09
D) $0.00
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

36) Common stockholders are essentially creditors of the firm.

Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: market required yield
Principles: Principle 2: There Is a Risk-Return Tradeoff

11
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
37) Common stock represents a claim on residual income.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

38) The growth rate of future earnings is determined by return on equity and the profit-retention
rate.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

39) The stockholder's expected rate of return consists of a dividend yield and interest.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

40) When bankruptcy occurs, the claims of the common shareholders may go unsatisfied.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: NYSE
Principles: Principle 2: There Is a Risk-Return Tradeoff

41) Cumulative voting gives each share of stock a number of votes equal to the number of
directors being elected to the board.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: voting rights
Principles: Principle 4: Market Prices Reflect Information

42) The expected rate of return implied by a given market price equals the required rate of return
for investors at the margin.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

12
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
43) Stock valuation is more precise than bond valuation as stock cash flows are more certain.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

44) The stock valuation model D1/(Rc - g) requires Rc > G.

Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

45) Is the following common stock priced correctly? If no, what is the correct price?
Price = $26.25
Required rate of return = 13%
Dividend year 0 = $2.00
Dividend year 1 = $2.10
2.10 - 2.00
Answer: Growth rate = = 5%
2.00
Vcs = 2.10 = $26.25
.13 - .05
The stock is priced correctly.
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

46) The common stock of Cranberry, Inc. is selling for $26.75 on the open market. A dividend of
$3.68 is expected to be distributed, and the growth rate of this company is estimated to be 5.5%.
If Richard Dean, an average investor, is considering purchasing this stock at the market price,
what is his expected rate of return?
Answer: R = (D/V) + g
R = ($3.68/$26.75) + .055
R = 19.26%
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

13
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
47) Tannerly Worldwide's common stock is currently selling for $48 a share. If the expected
dividend at the end of the year is $2.40 and last year's dividend was $2.00, what is the rate of
return implicit in the current stock price?
Answer: Rc = 2.40/48 + (2.40 - 2.00)/2.00
= .05 + .20
= 25%
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

48) Draper Company's common stock paid a dividend last year of $3.70. You believe that the
long-term growth in the dividends of the firm will be 8% per year. If your required return for
Draper is 14%, how much are you willing to pay for the stock?
$3.70( +.08) $3.996
Answer: P0 = = = $66.60
0.14 - 0.08 0.06
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

49) Determine the rate of return on a $25 common stock that pays a dividend of $2.50 in year 1
and grows at a rate of 5%.
2.50
Answer: Kcs = + 5% = 10% + 5% = 15%
25
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

50) You are considering the purchase of AMDEX Company stock. You anticipate that the
company will pay dividends of $2.00 per share next year and $2.25 per share the following year.
You believe that you can sell the stock for $17.50 per share two years from now. If your required
rate of return is 12%, what is the maximum price that you would pay for a share of AMDEX
Company stock?
Answer:
Vc = $2.00 PVIF12%,1 + $19.75 PVIF12%,2
= ($2.00)(.893) + ($19.75)(.797)
= $17.53
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

14
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
51) You can purchase one share of Sumter Company common stock for $80 today. You expect
the price of the common stock to increase to $85 per share in one year. The company pays an
annual dividend of $3.00 per share. What is your expected rate of return for Sumter stock?
$3.00 $85.00
Answer: $80.00 = +
1+ R (1 + R)
$80.00 (1 + R) = $88.00
$88.00
(1 + R) = = $1.10
$80.00
R = .10
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.1 Common Stock
Keywords: dividend growth
Principles: Principle 1: Money Has a Time Value

10.2 The Comparables Approach to Valuing Common Stock

1) If a stock has a much higher than normal P/E ratio, investors probably expect:
A) slow growth in earnings.
B) rapid growth in earnings.
C) large increases in the price of the stock.
D) a declining stock price
Answer: B
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.2 The Comparables Approach to Valuing Common Stock
Keywords: price/earnings ratio
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

2) Which of the following factors will influence a firm's P/E ratio?

A) The investors' required rate of return
B) Firm investment opportunities
C) General market conditions
D) All of the above
Answer: D
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.2 The Comparables Approach to Valuing Common Stock
Keywords: price/earnings ratio
Principles: Principle 3: Cash Flows Are the Source of Value

3) The P/E ratio is calculated by dividing:

A) the current stock price by stockholders' equity.
B) total assets by net income.
C) the current stock price by earnings per share.
D) the current stock price by operating cash flow per share.
Answer: C
Diff: 2
Topic: 10.2 The Comparables Approach to Valuing Common Stock
Keywords: price/earnings ratio
15
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
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different content
 "Where do you live when you're home?"

"McIlwraith Lake. My fat'er him Scarface Jack Black. Him very good
hunter."

Her air of humble timidity encouraged Joe enormously. This was plain
sailing. "What do you want to live in the woods for?" he said
condescendingly. "That's no place for a good-lookin' gal like you—among a
pack of savages."

She shrugged deprecatingly.

"You ought to be down here on the river where there's something doing.
White men know how to enjoy life."

"Yes," she said demurely.

"If you stayed down at the Fort you'd knock the spots off the other gals
there. There ain't one of them can touch you!"

"I got no place," she said.

"That's easy," said Joe. "I'll build you a shack."

"I think about it," she said.

"Dominion Day there's going to be a whale of a time at the Fort," Joe

went on. "Racing and fireworks and dancing and free eats for everybody.
Like that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you come down to my place ahead of time, and we'll float down
to the Fort on a raft."

"Thank you," she said.

Joe, overjoyed at the progress he was making, drew his box closer, and
laid a ham of a hand on one of her slender brown ones. Ralph, observing the
move from outside, ground his teeth afresh.

"You're all right!" said Joe unctuously. "You and me'll be good friends.
I'm a liberal feller, I am. A good-lookin' gal can get what she likes out of
me."

The girl drew away. "They see you outside," she said warningly.

Joe laughed thickly. "You're shy, eh? That's all right, sis. I like 'em a little
bashful at first. Me and you'll have a talk later on when there ain't nobody
around."

When Joe returned to the others it was with the air of a conqueror.
Ralph's right fist instinctively doubled at the sight of his fat complacency,
but for the present he had to content himself with picking out the spots
where he would like to plant it.

"She's all right," said Joe patronizingly. "Nice little gal."

"What's her name? Where does she live?" asked Staley.

Joe repeated what she had told him. Ralph breathed more freely.

"She's lying," said Staley coolly. "I traded at McIlwraith Lake six years
off and on. I ought to know. She never come of Sikannis stock; they're an
undersized people and narrow-eyed."

"Well, she's half-white, maybe," said Joe.

"She never showed her face on McIlwraith Lake when I was there," said
Staley. "I knew them all. There's no hunter in the tribe called Scarface Jack
Black. She was stringing you."

"I don't care," said Joe. "It don't hurt her looks any."

During the afternoon each one of the other three men made an occasion
to sidle up to the girl; Matthews the sardonic Scotchman, Staley with his
pale, sharp, storekeeper's face, and the lubberly old Wes' with his wandering
pale eye, and his tobacco-stained chin. The girl's manner was the same to
each; demure, receptive, simple-minded. Ralph could make nothing of her.
All this was hard on his temper. He was divided between anger at the ill-
concealed grossness of the men, and anger at Nahnya for not resenting it.
He no longer took any pleasure in the beauty of the river.

At dusk they tied up to a tree on the shore and ran out a plank. The boys
built a rousing fire under the pines, and as the darkness increased it made a
fantastic chiaroscuro in crimson and black; the fire leaping under the
boughs, the silhouettes of the half-breeds moving about it preparing supper,
and on the river side the quaint little steamboat sticking her nose into the
red glow.

When supper was ready the five white men sat down beside the fire, but
the girl, notwithstanding the hearty and jocular invitations of four of them,
carried her portion back on the boat.

"Let her go," said Joe. "She's dainty about eating in company."

His air of proprietorship was almost more than Ralph could brook. Joe,
sitting cross-legged, with his stomach on his knees, was not a beautiful
sight. He had divested himself of all unnecessary clothing. He ate and drank
with a noisy gusto that was all his own, and his cheeks and the bald spot on
his crown became purple with the effort. A mat of dank black hair hung
over his forehead, and the long ends of his moustache dripped tea.

Nahnya sat down on the deck to her supper in view of the men, for it was
not yet perfectly dark. Ralph, watching her covertly, was filled with a heavy
anxiety at the thought of her position alone on the boat during the night. If
she felt apprehensive herself she showed nothing, and it did not affect her
appetite.

Joe, observing Ralph's glances toward the steamboat, laughed in his

uproarious way. "The kid's askeered of a petticoat!" he cried. "Go ahead,
boy; it won't bite you!"

Ralph could cheerfully have brained Joe where he sat. He was obliged,
however, to turn it off with the best smile he could muster. At the same time
Joe's jibe gave him an idea. He took care to finish before the others, and
went on the boat, muttering something about getting tobacco.

"Be up and down with her, kid," cried Joe. "Half measures won't get you
nowhere!"

"Fine night," said Ralph to Nahnya, loud enough for those on shore to
hear.

"Yes," she said, with exactly the same manner she had adopted toward
them all.

It dashed him a little. He went on inside to get tobacco out of his

dunnage bag. When he came out again, she pointedly looked away across
the river.

Ralph came close to her, and lowered his voice; anxiety made him
rough. "How are you going to manage to-night?" he asked.

"What do you want to know for?" she said coolly, without looking at
him.

The blood rushed to Ralph's face; his temper had already been put to a
strain one way and another. "I was only thinking of your safety," he said
hotly.

"You don't have to," she said. "I can take care of myself."

"Do you know Joe Mixer lets on that he has won you?" Ralph went on
harshly. "That swine! What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't care what he says," she said indifferently. "I know what to do."

Ralph did not really suspect her, but it suited his sore and angry mood to
make out that he did. "I trusted you!" he said bitterly.

This pierced her inscrutability. Her eyes flashed a hurt and angry look at
him. "What you want?" she said swiftly and softly. "If I slap Joe Mixer's
ugly face he make Wes' Trickett stop the boat and put me on shore. I don't
want any trouble. I fool them all the same."

"Oh!" said Ralph, disconcerted and relieved.

"Go ashore," she said. "I tell you not to talk to me on the steamboat."

"They all make up to you," Ralph explained in justification. "It looks

funny if I'm the only one that stays away. They've started to jolly me about
it. You let them come around all they want. Why can't you be the same to
me?"

"Go!" she said. "You can't act the same like them to me. They see the
difference. If I friendly with you right away there will be trouble. Go stay
with them."

This was unanswerable. "But I'm anxious about you," Ralph persisted in
more humble tones. "What are you going to do?"

She shrugged coolly. "Do not worry," she said. "I can take care of
myself. These are not the first foolish white men I have to manage."

Ralph turned over the gangplank more puzzled than ever by her, but on
the whole easier in his mind. Her confidence in herself was infectious.

As he resumed his place by the fire, Joe said with his fat laugh: "Nothing
doing, eh, Kid?"

"A man can't always cop the first prize," Ralph returned.

"I was ahead of you on this," Joe said with another guffaw.

Ralph still smiled. "We'll see," he thought.

The night was drawing on clear and still. The black flies had ceased their
malignant activity at sunset, and it was too cold for mosquitoes. Joe
suggested that they sleep ashore, and it was voted a good idea. The pine
needles offered a softer bed than the planks of the steamboat's deck.
Nevertheless Ralph divined an ulterior motive behind the suggestion, and
Joe's transparent efforts to break up the talk around the fire heightened his
suspicions.

"They ain't no rush," said Wes' Trickett comfortably. "They's all day to-
morrow to make the rapids."

"'Ain't no rush' is your motter, Wes'," remarked Pete Staley.

"I do' want no better motter," returned the captain. "That's why I come
North, I guess. Outside men fret theirselves to death tryin' to do each other.
What do they get for it?—a gold-plated casket, maybe, and a marble
mouse-olium with a angel pointing to the skies. Pretty cold comfort, if you
ast me. I'd a sight ruther take my ease sleepin' warm under a blanket, and
wake up to good bacon and cawfee. There was Tinker Beasley now, he was
always in a sweat. I mind how Tinker——"

"Oh, for God's sake, Wes', I heard that story twenty times!" cried Joe
Mixer. "It's near twelve o'clock. Get your blankets off the boat, men."

Joe finally prevailed. As soon as the men had taken their blankets ashore,
Nahnya disappeared inside the deckhouse, closing the front door after her,
and likewise closing the door on the side that faced the shore. There were
no locks on these doors for her protection.

One by one each white man knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and
crawling between his blankets, feet to the fire, added a trumpet to the
chorus of snores. The breed boys were already quiet beside their dying fire.
Ralph lay down with the others, privately resolving not to give way to
sleep. He filled his pipe afresh, and propping his head on his elbow, stared
at the blushing embers, and assorted the impressions of the day in his mind.
Looking over his shoulder he could see through the chinks of the boards
that Nahnya had made a light within her rude cabin.

In spite of him, the still night began to have its way, and peace
descended on his spirit. The slow, ruby progress of the fire, the spicy scent
of the pines, and the pleasant murmur of the current against the forefoot of
the moored steamboat all combined to undermine wakefulness. The very
concert of snores irresistibly suggested sleep to his subconsciousness. This
was the camp-scene Ralph had desirously pictured to himself. It was good.
His late agitation began to seem a little foolish to him.

"One would think I was falling in love with the girl," he thought. "That's
absurd!"

He repeated "absurd!" to himself several times over for safety's sake. His
head gradually slipped off the supporting palm, and pillowed itself on the
thick of his arm.

Before he was altogether lost to consciousness, Joe Mixer, two figures

removed from him, came to a stop in the middle of a snore, stirred in his
blankets, and sat up abruptly, snuffling and shaking his head to rid himself
of the incubus of sleep. His little eyes passed with a cautious glance from
one to another of the recumbent forms.

Ralph was instantly on the alert again. "Hello!" he said. "What's the
matter?"

Joe started and scowled. Joe had but an imperfect command over his
features; his frustrated design was clearly evident. Muttering an
unmistakable oath, he lay down again.

Ralph's desire to sleep was effectually disposed of. He lay still with his
eyes closed. Very soon Joe, who apparently could go to sleep and wake up
at will, recommenced snoring with inimitable naturalness. Ralph looked
over his shoulder. The light was still burning within the deckhouse. A spring
of compassion started in his breast.

"Poor girl!" he thought. "She's afraid to turn in!"

He was keenly distressed by the mental picture of Nahnya sitting alone,

fighting sleep, and awaiting the approach of danger. He got up without
having a very clear idea of what he meant to do—except that she must be
reassured. He crossed the plank to the boat's deck. He knew he could not
open either of the two closed doors without causing a screech sufficient to
awaken the entire party, but he found that the door on the river side was still
open, for he could see the rays of light streaming out on the dusty surface of
the water. There was a narrow deck all the way around outside the house.
He made for the open doorway, but stopped before showing himself. Ralph
had conceived a respect for the resources of this inexplicable girl. One
could never be sure in advance of what she might do.

"Hello!" he said softly. "It's the doctor."

There was no answer.

With a fast-beating heart he looked in. She was sleeping on the deck in
the middle of an open space between the piles of freight forward and the
boiler aft. To a beam over her head she had fastened the engineer's lantern,
and Ralph, instantly comprehending, had to approve both her courage and
her good sense. The light was her safeguard.

She had spread a piece of canvas on the deck, and lay wrapped in a gray
blanket, her head pillowed on her outflung arm. Her face, slightly turned
up, was revealed under the light, calm and partly smiling in sleep. The hard,
watchful look that had so often nonplussed him during the day had
disappeared. Once again he was compelled to rearrange all his impressions
of her.

"She's only a kid!" he thought tenderly. He had not presumed to take the
protective attitude toward her before.

Her long, curved lashes swept her dusky cheeks; her lips were a little
parted as if in expectation; the hand that was flung out toward him lay palm
upward, the fingers bent, as if mutely asking for a comrade hand.
Abandoned to sleep as she lay, there was something at once appealing and
holy in her aspect: something that made his whole being yearn over her, and
that caused him to draw back outside the door.

He could not bear to look at her. A feeling he could not have named
made him return to the forward deck. He turned up his face to the night sky,
and let his heart quiet down. The essence of the poetry of womanhood had
been shown to him, and the starry night thrilled with the wonder of it. In a
flash there was revealed to him a new understanding of all the love-poems
he had ever read, and perhaps secretly despised.
 "She sleeps like a lily on the water," he murmured to himself without the
least shame.

By and by, prose reasserting itself, he began to reflect upon what he

should do next. "If I go back to the fire I'll surely fall asleep," he thought.
"But if I lie down here nobody can disturb her without waking me first."

Procuring his blankets from beside the fire, he made his bed on the deck
in such a position that any one seeking the open door must step over his
body. There he waited for sleep, dwelling with rapt tenderness on the sight
he had seen, graving it lovingly on his subconsciousness for a shrine that he
might revisit as long as consciousness endured. He drifted away to the
accompaniment of the distant drumming of a partridge in the woods.

Suddenly he found himself wide awake without being able to tell what
had aroused him. The campfire was now black out, and nothing but a
blacker shadow was visible toward the shore. He waited a little breathlessly
for confirmation of the alarm he had received. Finally the plank to the shore
creaked under a heavy weight, and Ralph became aware of a looming
figure. He sat up.

The figure stopped at the edge of the deck. "Who's there?" came in Joe
Mixer's thick voice, quick with alarm.

"Cowdray," said Ralph coolly.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Ralph sprang up, kicking his legs free of the entangling blanket. "What
the hell are you after?" he retorted.

"I don't have to account to you," snarled Joe.

There was a silence. They stood with clenched fists, straining their eyes
to take each other's measure in the dark.

Evidently Joe thought better of his truculence, for when he spoke again it
was in conciliatory tones. "Gad! You give me a start to see you rise up like
that! I thought I had 'em! You shouldn't scare a man to death before you
knock him down, Doc!"

Joe's greasy obsequiousness was more offensive to Ralph than his anger.
He remained silent.

"When the fire went out I woke up cold," Joe went on plausibly. "I come
aboard to get me a sweater out of my bag."

Ralph was not deceived. The thought of Joe's evil, swimming little eyes
profaning the picture of the sleeping girl inside, by so much as looking at
her, filled him with a cold, unreasonable rage, and he was ready to go to any
lengths to prevent it. At the same time he reflected that it would serve her
better to avoid a fight, if he could, and he put his wits to work.

"Take one of my blankets," he said. "I have more than I need!"

Joe demurred. They argued the matter with sarcastic politeness on both
sides. Each was aware that the other saw through his game.

Ralph soon tired of it. "Very well, if you want to go in there, you go by
the front door, see?" he said shortly.

Joe knew as well as Ralph that the screech of the door would awaken her
before he got in. "What's the matter with you?" snarled Joe.

"What's the use of beating around the bush?" retorted Ralph. "I tell you
straight I won't allow that girl to be bothered."

"You won't let her be bothered!" sneered Joe. "Holy mackerel, listen to
what's talking! Did she put you out here as a guard?"

"She did not," said Ralph.

"I know darn well she didn't," said Joe. "And she wouldn't thank you for
it neither. She's got a date with me to-night."

"You lie!" said Ralph. Rage made him cold.

 Joe advanced until their bodies almost touched, Ralph held himself in
readiness. He meant to make Joe strike first. But the blow was not
delivered.

"Damn you!" Joe whispered thickly. "I'll make you swallow that some
day. I never forget a thing. I make men pay."

"Why postpone it?" said Ralph clearly.

Joe's voice weakened. "Well, I don't want to make a racket," he

grumbled.

"Sure, you don't want to make a racket!" cried Ralph with quick scorn.
"A racket would spoil your game! You like darkness and quiet, don't you?"
Suddenly the comic aspect of the situation presented itself to him, and he
laughed. "There's nothing doing to-night, Joe," he said. "I'm on the job. You
might as well go back and have your sleep out."

It was an incontrovertible truth. Joe turned abruptly, and went back over
the gangplank, swearing under his breath.

III

ON THE LITTLE RIVER

The next day passed as if the scene of the night had not taken place. The
question of the girl passenger did not become acute again, because all the
men were too busy to pay her any attention. When they arose to their
breakfast Joe Mixer's bearing toward Ralph was as near as he could make it
unaltered from the day before. In this a less open nature would have
perceived something more dangerous than candid enmity, but it was
characteristic of the easy-going Ralph to meet him halfway.
 From sun-up to dark they were engaged almost continuously in pulling
the little Tewksbury up the Gisborne rapids, crew and passengers pitching in
together. After his weeks of inaction at Fort Edward, Ralph welcomed hard
work, and felt like a man again. The entire operation was novel and
interesting to him. A hawser was sent ashore in a boat, one end remaining
on the vessel; the other end was tied to a stout tree upstream, and with eight
men at a time bending their backs to the capstan, the little vessel hauled
herself up hand over hand on the rope. Meanwhile her paddle-wheel was
not idle astern. When the rope was all in, another was sent ashore and the
trick repeated. More than once the rope broke and they lost all they had
gained. It was nine o'clock before they got in smooth water again, and night
was falling when they finally tied up to the bank at Gisborne portage, below
the new store of Mixer & Staley.

Ralph himself had made no attempt to approach Nahnya during the day.
It was enough for him to watch her covertly, and to picture to himself the
delights of the coming journey when he would have her to himself. The
fever in Ralph's veins, all unknown to him, was making a dangerously rapid
headway. Already the mere thought of this journey was enough to set his
heart beating fast.

As they were making a landing in the dusk, every one else being
occupied at the moment, Ralph suddenly found her at his elbow saying
swiftly:

"You sleep with the men in the bunk-house to-night; I make out I sleep
here."

"I won't leave you alone," Ralph began heatedly. "Last night——"

She calmly interrupted him. "I not stay here truly," she said. "Soon as
everybody go I walk to my camp at Hat Lake. It is six miles. You come over
there early. Soon as it get light. The tote road show you the way."

Some one turned in their direction, and she was gone.

Ralph was, as a matter of course, invited to sup with Mixer and Staley,
and to spend the night in their bunkhouse. After having turned in with Joe
and the others, he was awakened in the middle of night by hearing the fat
man come in and fling himself with muttered curses into a bunk across the
room. Ralph swallowed a chuckle and took a fresh hold on sleep.

He awoke automatically when daylight whitened the window-panes,

which is to say at three o'clock in June at that latitude. The others were
sleeping like vocal logs. Just over the threshold of the stuffy sleeping-place
morning was waiting for him, a miracle of refreshment. He inhaled its chill
sweetness as if his lungs were for the first time washed with fresh air, and
looked about him with the curiosity of the traveller who arrived in the dark.
Where he stood men's axes had made a hideous scar on the prospect, and he
turned his back on the shacks and the stumps to gaze at the unalterable
river. In the half-light the brown flood and the hills opposite had a secret
look, a finger on the lips that hushed him from making any noise. It seemed
like the earliest morning of earth. The water tempted him to a brief plunge.

Dressing, and taking his bag and blankets, he started to climb with a
light heart. Was he not going to her? "This is where the fun really begins,"
he told himself. The tote road rose in plain view behind the shack. Halfway
up the incline Ralph was startled to come upon an Indian youth squatting
beside the trail as still as an image—so still that Ralph was upon him before
he realized the figure was not part of the landscape. It was a surprising
object to find in a world that you thought was all your own.

The boy was gayly attired in an embroidered velvet waistcoat, a clean

gingham shirt, a red sash, buckskin trousers, and fancy moccasins. On his
head was an expensive felt hat with flaring, stiff brim. He was a handsome,
well-set-up youth of about nineteen, with a face as blank of expression as a
cat's. A good-sized pack lay on the ground beside him.

"Hello, there!" cried Ralph in his surprise.

The Indian rose, and without altering a muscle of his brown mask,
extended a hand. "How!" he said.

"You're up early," said Ralph. "What are you doing here?"

 The boy pulled his ear and shook his head to convey to Ralph that his
speech was wasted. In unmistakable signs he then let it be known that he
was waiting for Ralph, and that Ralph was to follow him.

"Waiting for me?" said Ralph. "Who the deuce are you?"

The boy said something in his own tongue of which Ralph distinguished
the word Nahnya. It filled Ralph with a certain disquiet.

Without waiting for more, the Indian shouldered his pack and set off up
the trail at a brisk pace. Ralph followed as best he could. The incident had
dashed his delight in the morning. There was no room for a third identity in
his dreams of the journey that was to be. Ralph made but heavy going. The
bulk of his bundles discommoded him more than the weight. He had the roll
of blankets under one arm and the dunnage bag under the other. The Indian
never looked behind to see how he fared. Reaching the top of the hill he
immediately fell into the rolling rack to which white men's hips
accommodate themselves only after practice.

The boy's complete indifference to his struggles did not improve Ralph's
temper. After a mile of it, panting, perspiring, and with breaking arms, he
flung his bundles on the ground and commanded the Indian to stop. The boy
came back with a slightly contemptuous air, and putting off his own pack,
waited indifferently, looking everywhere but at Ralph.

Ralph swore at him out of his heartfelt exasperation, and the boy
brightened a little. Evidently this was something he knew. Ralph with
forcible gestures made him understand that he was to show him how to
pack the stuff in the proper way on his back.

It was the longest six miles Ralph ever travelled, nor had he any eye for
the beauties by the way. To be obliged to exert himself so strenuously
before breakfast caused him to feel as if the walls of his stomach had
collapsed, and put him in a grinding temper.

At the end of two hours the suspicion of a welcome tang on the air
caused Ralph to throw up his head and sniff. "Bacon, by Gad!" he cried
aloud.
 They turned the spur of a knoll and saw lying before them an exquisite
little stretch of water, gleaming like an opal under the pale sky. Along its
margin reached a narrow meadow of rich green, where a little fire burned,
sending a column of thin smoke straight aloft, and beside the fire was
Nahnya. She turned a quick face at the sound of their footsteps.

At sight of her Ralph forgot his hungry ill-temper. The girl was
transformed. The deplorable hat, the awkward trade clothes, the ill-fitting
shoes were discarded. She was wearing a blue flannel shirt open at the
throat, and with the sleeves turned up revealing a pair of poetic forearms; a
buckskin skirt, and moccasins of white doeskin, silk embroidered. Thus
garbed she was as suitable to her background of woods and water as one of
the wild swans up the lake. Ralph, gazing at her, felt triumphantly justified.
"I knew she looked like this!" he thought.

Her beauty was still self-contained. She shook hands as a matter of

ceremony, without giving Ralph her eyes.

"What's the matter now?" he wondered with a sinking heart.

The three of them breakfasted in the grass. The food was good, but
Ralph's spirits were flat. He had supposed that, relieved of the presence of
Joe Mixer and the others, she would unbend with him. Apparently she had
no such intention. Then there was the boy. The horrid suspicion became
fixed in Ralph's mind that the boy was going with them. Alas! for his
dreams! The girl and the boy talked together in their own liquid tongue, and
from the latter's sidelong, beady glances Ralph had no difficulty in guessing
that he was the subject of it. The fact did not help to put him at his ease.

The boy's undeniable good looks offended Ralph. Wholly savage he was,
but clear-skinned, lithe as a cat, and beautifully made. Ralph could not but
wonder, biting his lips a little, what they were to each other. Whatever the
relation, she was clearly the leading spirit; she ordered and the boy obeyed,
albeit sometimes sullenly. Under her imperious ways with the boy Ralph
thought he perceived a certain affectionate air that lighted a pretty little fire
in him. His pride was up in arms then, that an Indian lad was able to make
him jealous.
 After breakfast she sent the boy to cut spruce branches, and Ralph had a
moment alone with her. He lost no time in coming to the point.

"What's the matter?" he demanded to know.

"Nothing," she said.

"Have I done anything to make you sore?" he persisted.

"No," she said.

"Then why do you treat me like an enemy?"

The girl shrugged impatiently, and scowled, and looked away across the
water, exquisitely uncomfortable. "I don't know you," she muttered. "You
are strange to me."

Ralph took a little hope from this. At least she was not wholly
indifferent. "Who's that boy?" he asked, trying to say it casually.

"That is Charley," she said, with a warm gleam in her eyes that stabbed
Ralph.

"Is he going with us?" he cried. He could not pretend to be indifferent.

"Sure!" she said, opening her eyes wide.

Ralph turned on his heel. He could not trust himself to pursue his
inquiries. All his delightful imaginings of the trip to come collapsed like
card-houses. Her husband or her lover, of course! What a fool he had been!

Their dugout floated at the edge of the grass, an unconscionably long

and slender craft, hollowed out of the trunk of a cottonwood tree. It required
a nice calculation to bestow all their belongings in it to advantage. During
this operation Ralph observed that there were three little tents, and took
heart of grace once more. On such trifles his spirits seesawed up and down
all day. True, he could have ended the state of suspense at any time by a
plain question, but he dared not for fear of hearing the worst.
 When the baggage was packed, Nahnya commanded Ralph to sit upon
the spruce boughs which had been laid for him in the bottom near the stern.
In getting in the cranky craft he narrowly escaped pitching out on the other
side, to Nahnya's and Charley's undisguised amusement. Charley took the
bow paddle, Nahnya the stern, and they pushed off from the shore.

Ralph had the feeling that he was cutting loose with one stroke from
everything he had known in life up to that moment. "We're off!" he thought
grimly. "I'm elected for something, I don't know what! Where will I be this
time to-morrow? this time next month?"

The lake was like mother-of-pearl under the misty, early sunshine; all
around the shore it was backed by an unbroken border of fantastic, serrated
jack-pines. Out in the middle floated the half-dozen little islands which had
provided its name Hat Lake. Each had a brim of yellow beach, a band of
willows, and a pine plume or two sticking up in the middle, and the group
instantly suggested a display of spring millinery.

They had not gone above a quarter of a mile, when hearing the
surprising sound of a shout behind them, the three of them turned as one to
behold a horseman riding down to the water's edge at the late point of
departure. He flung himself off his horse; from his bulk it was not difficult
to recognize Joe Mixer. He shouted to them to return. Nahnya and Charley
waved their paddles once like semaphores, and coolly kept on. Ralph,
continuing to look, sensed the fat man dancing in the grass with rage, and
brandishing his fists. In his mind's ear he could hear his surprising oaths.
Joe Mixer was eloquent and fertile in profanity.

"We not start too soon," Nahnya said calmly.

"He'll be laying for me when I come back," said Ralph carelessly.

"You not come back this way," was Nahnya's surprising answer.

They did not traverse the main body of the lake, but turned into a bay in
the right-hand shore. It had no visible outlet, but they kept steadily on,
threading their way through lily pads and reeds, while the shores came
closer and closer. The water narrowed until it was no more than a slack
inlet, twisting interminably through the ooze. At last a scarcely perceptible
current began to bear them on, and Ralph saw that they had entered a river.

"This water go far," Nahnya said. "Far as the sea of ice; two months'
journey, I guess."

It was the first time in an hour that she had addressed him, and Ralph's
heart looked up. He twisted his head to look at her, and the dugout lurched
alarmingly.

"Sit quiet!" she ordered sharply.

Rebuked, he kept his eyes front thereafter. "What's the river's name?" he
asked meekly enough.

"Got no name here," she said.

"Call it the Doll River, for its size."

"In five days you see it half a mile wide," she said.

As the current increased its flow the stream became narrower still, and
the willow branches brushed their faces on one side and the other. With its
dense, low willows, its endless sharp turns, and its brawling little rapids it
was comically like the Campbell in miniature, only the dugout and
themselves were out of scale.

Ralph felt like Gulliver in Lilliput. He could not but admire the skill with
which Nahnya snaked their long craft around the bends without jamming it.

The crookedness of the stream was incredible. There was a little

eminence shaped like a teapot visible above the willows, now on one side,
now on the other, before and behind. All day it was in sight without
seeming to recede any.

They made their first spell to eat in a tiny flowery meadow beside the
stream. Lunch was largely a repetition of breakfast. Ralph was making an
effort to carry things lightly. Upon reëmbarking afterwards, he asked for a
paddle.
 "It's great to view the scenery sitting down like a first-class passenger,"
he said, "but I feel like a loafer."

Nahnya shook her head. "You fall overboard," she said coolly. "Wait till
you grow in the boat."

Ralph acknowledged the reasonableness of this. In getting in the dugout,

without consulting Nahnya, he faced around the other way so that at least
he could have the satisfaction of looking at her while they moved along.
Nahnya made no comment. He got no glances in return from her, for her
eyes were fixed undeviatingly on her course.

When the current, slyly increasing its flow, swept them around a bend
and bore them headlong into a rapid, Nahnya was transfigured. Poised at
the helm, straight as a young pine tree, with her flashing, resolute, confident
eyes fixed ahead—eyes with the fighting look, magnificent and intimidating
—cheeks flushed, lips parted, round arms wielding the paddle with deft,
strong strokes, she was a glorious sight for a man's eyes.

Ralph, drinking it in, thrilled with that kind of terror of women's beauty
that the bravest man may confess without shame. "What man could ever
presume to master a woman like that?" was the thought.

When they fell into smooth water again, and the tension relaxed, the
heroines of his boyhood presented themselves one by one for comparison;
Diana, Boadicea, Joan of Arc. He rejected them all. "Nahnya is only like
herself!" he thought. Aloud he cried enthusiastically: "Nahnya, you're
wonderful!"

Suddenly recalled to herself, she started, blushed, looked a little foolish,

and scowled at the trees on shore. "Cut it out!" she muttered.

It struck him as an exactly fitting thing for her to say.

And then the thought that this superb woman-creature was likely the
property of the insensible savage boy in the bow stabbed him afresh, and
poisoned all his joy. "It can't be!" he had told himself a hundred times
during the morning. "She could not stoop to that!"
 All morning the question had been flung back and forth in his mind like
a shuttle. He watched them unceasingly, building high castles of hope upon
their apparent indifference to each other, only to have them cast flat when
she spoke to the boy in their own tongue, words that he could not
understand. He continually cast around in his mind for some way to find out
what he wanted without putting the question direct, but without success.
Ralph was painfully direct. After beholding Nahnya in her glory in the
rapids, he could bear the suspense no longer. Choosing a moment when the
going was easy and her attention was free to stray from the river, he
hazarded all on a single throw.

"Nahnya, is Charley in your family?" he asked bluntly.

"He is my brother," she readily answered.

Relief unspeakable flooded Ralph's breast. "Why didn't you tell me?" he
cried naïvely.

"Why should I?" said Nahnya coolly.

The rebuke was lost on him. Suddenly he found the sun smiling with an
extraordinary graciousness on the river, and all the pine trees seemed to be
full of little singing birds—as a matter of fact there are no warblers so far
north. This was a glorious adventure that he was launched upon; Romance
was alive and Life was good! He derided himself now for the timid folly
that had prevented him putting the question before. Meanwhile the poor
fellow was struggling not to let all this show in his face.

"What you think about Charley?" Nahnya asked idly.

"I thought maybe he was your husband," Ralph said, with a great air of
carelessness.

She translated to the boy, and they both laughed. Ralph joined with
them. "I got no husband," Nahnya said, with a scornful lift to her chin. "I
not want any. I like better to work for myself!"
 She might be as independent of men as she chose, so she was not owned
by any man. "That's what every girl says," he remarked with a new
audacity. "Until she catches a man, and makes him work for her!"

Nahnya declined to be drawn into the game. She affected to be busy with
her course ahead.

"Charley does not look like you," Ralph said presently.

"Charley what you call my half brother," she said. "His father not the
same as my father."

"Your father was a white man?" hazarded Ralph.

She calmly ignored the question. Ralph felt a little flattened out.

The rapids followed each other with short intervals between. The river
having taken in several little tributaries during the day was less diminutive
now, but no less charming. It was a jolly little stream that loved to surprise
them with new tricks around every bend. It was not without its element of
danger, too, at least to their baggage. Rounding a bend, Nahnya suddenly
shouted a command to her brother, and leaped overboard. The water
reached to her knees. Bracing herself against the tearing current, she held
on grimly.

The startled Ralph looking around saw that Charley was likewise
overboard. The reason was plain. A pine tree undermined by the current had
toppled over to the opposite bank, and lay trailing its branches in the
current, and completely blocking all passage. Ralph, though Nahnya
forbade it, joined them in the icy water, and between the three of them they
edged the boat ashore. Charley quickly chopped a way through.

They camped for the night on top of a bluff, about fifteen feet above the
river. There was a little clearing and the remains of old campfires. The view
upstream in the lingering twilight was enchanting. As time went on Ralph
noticed that all the regular camping-places along the river had been chosen
with a discriminating eye for beauty of outlook.
 That evening Ralph's spirits blew a whole gale. He could be friendly
enough with Charley now. By degrees he apprehended that the strange
aloofness of both brother and sister was for the most part merely the
aloofness of children; they required to be won. Since Ralph had a good deal
of the child left in him, his instinct taught him how to set about it. To do his
share of the work with a right good will; to put off the least suspicion of
"side"; and to make fun—especially to make fun—such was his simple
method. Ralph played the fool with all his might.

Charley soon succumbed. Charley was Boy in the concrete—simple,

undiscerning, and hard-headed; limited in outlook, therefore prone to scorn.
Nahnya was more complicated. Ralph's overtures at first only made her
more skittish and distant. Ralph redoubled his efforts. "I'll make her laugh,
or break a leg," he vowed.

And obliged to laugh she was, finally, at the sight of Ralph flipping
cakes in the pan to the accompaniment of a double shuffle.

"You foolish!" she said scornfully; but her eyes were kind.

After supper, the mosquitoes being in abeyance, they lay for awhile in a
row beside the fire, before turning in under their respective mosquito bars.
By this time all constraint was melted. Ralph was accepted as one of them.
It appeared that Charley knew more English than he had been prepared to
confess to a stranger, so that he was not altogether shut out from their talk.

Ralph lay in the middle, his shoulder warm against Nahnya's while the
happy blood flew through his veins. Meanwhile the old question asked
itself, without any answer being forthcoming: was she feeling the same
ecstasy as he, or was she unconscious of the delicious contact? Surely she
must be aware of the current that leaped from her body into his. His hand
groped slyly on the ground between them for hers, but without reward.

Nevertheless Nahnya really unbent, and proved for once that she could
talk and laugh as easily as any girl. Ralph often looked back on that hour.
The boy and girl gave him his first lesson in Cree; tepiskow—to-night;
mooniyas—white man; pahkwishegan—bread; and so on, laughing
endlessly at his efforts to pronounce the words. In return Ralph offered to
extend Charley's knowledge of the English tongue, and set forth as his first
exercise the ancient limerick:

A tutor who tooted the flute

Tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor
Is it easier to toot or
To tutor two tooters to toot?

The woods rang with their laughter. Never had brother and sister heard
such mirth-provoking sounds on the human tongue. Charley was obliged to
roll on the ground and howl to relieve his breast of its weight of fun.
Nahnya's low, liquid laughter was like celestial music in Ralph's ears. The
desire was well-nigh insupportable in his breast to start Charley rolling
down the bank with a thrust of the foot, and turning over to seize her in his
arms and stop her laughing mouth with kisses.

IV

THE DAY OF DAYS

They issued from under their mosquito bars to behold a scene as

delicately bright as sunrise in fairyland. The sun shone through the green-
hung corridor of the stream full in their faces, and the silkily eddying water
caught at its level rays as if strings of diamonds were stretched across from
bank to bank and gently agitated. To the dark trunks of the pine forest on
either hand the fairies had pinned fantastic banners of fairy gold leaf.
Nahnya and Ralph looked at it, and looking at each other, shared their
pleasure without the necessity of speaking. To Ralph the sight of Nahnya
was like the very Spirit of Morning making him over anew.
 As they sat after breakfast charmed by the beauty of it, a full-grown
moose rounded the bend upstream and came splashing unconcernedly
toward their camp, his noble, ugly head and his racer limbs outlined against
the golden mist. He carried his heavy head with a lowering pride, and
stepped like a monarch. His antlers, that amazing extravagance of nature,
were just now half-grown, and gloved in bloomy velvet.

Ralph, who like most men had always thought of himself as a hunter, felt
a thrill at the sight of the kingly creature there in his fitting place,
antipathetic to the thought of slaughter. And when Charley, quick as a
woods creature himself, turned and snaked himself soundlessly toward his
gun, a little sound of compunction escaped the white man.

Slight as it was, the moose heard, stopped, flung up his head, and like a
released arrow leapt up the bank, and disappeared through the woods. Ralph
was glad of his escape. Charley scowled sidewise at the white man, and
swore under his breath in good English.

When they reëmbarked in the dugout, Ralph did not ask again for a
paddle, but seated himself as before, facing Nahnya, where he could feast
his eyes on her. It was a day among days; the river flowed like a song of
summer, like a day-long symphony of life at the flood; andante where they
were borne smoothly under the brown-carpeted banks and athwart the
golden open spaces; adagio crossing the still black pools hemmed around
with sombre pines; and scherzo in the jolly rapids. All nature joined in the
concert, swelling and trembling with the life flood until the human hearts in
the orchestra vibrated like violins almost to the pitch of pain. More
especially one heart of the trio. It was too strong a dose for Ralph. He was
filled with a delicate intoxication that made his eyes as bright and
irresponsible as a faun's. He was not aware himself of the subtle changes
working within him. Borne away on the crest of the flood, he lost the sense
of his own identity. Nature had her way with him, undermining all his
defences before he took the alarm. Civilization, being out of sight, passed
out of mind. All his ideas of right and wrong were sloughed off like an old
skin, revealing him no more than a young creature of the woods face to face
with the woman he desired. Both young men sang and shouted on the way,
and talked loud, foolish talk.
 Nahnya gave no sign of being aware of Ralph's ardent glances, but when
they started again, after the first spell on shore, she coolly commanded him
to turn around, and handed him a paddle. Thereafter Ralph worked his
passage.

There were times when the forest drew back, and the river flowed
through shining meadows elevated a little above the travellers' heads. In one
such place Charley suddenly turned, and holding up a warning hand,
pointed to a spot ashore. Nahnya immediately brought the canoe around in a
graceful sweep, and they clung to a bush at the water's edge under the place
the boy had pointed out.

Ralph was at a loss to understand the move. At first he could hear

nothing; their senses were better trained than his. Finally the sound of a
long sigh came to him, and a soft rolling in the grass above. A heavier sigh
followed, a long-drawn complaining breath ending in a bass groan, and then
the sound of a heavy body struggling to its feet, all very like a man of over
fourteen stone reluctantly taking up the day's burdens.

Nahnya touched Ralph's shoulder and pointed to his camera. He trained

it on the spot.

Suddenly through the grass, no more than ten feet from Ralph, stuck a
hairy head as big as a butter-tub. It was an immense brown bear. His breath
was almost in their faces; they could have whacked him with their paddles.
For an appreciable instant he gazed at them, his ears pricked, his chops
fallen, his little, short-sighted eyes agog with comic dismay. Ralph snapped
the shutter of his camera, and the three youngsters broke simultaneously
into a roar of laughter. With a terrified snort the bear disappeared. For a
long time they could hear him galloping desperately away through the
grass.

"Why didn't Charley want to shoot him?" asked Ralph.

"Skin no good in the summer," said Nahnya. "Bear meat much tough."

The little river was not yet done with its surprises. By and by without
any warning it carried them around a point of the elevated meadow, and
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