The Man And His Mission

At almost the same hour in which Sam Carr and his daughter held that
intimate conversation on the porch of their home a twenty-foot
Peterborough freight canoe was sliding down the left-hand bank of the
Athabasca like some gray river-beast seeking the shade of the birch and
willow growth that overhung the shore. The current beneath and the
thrust of the blades sent it swiftly along the last mile of the river
and shot the gray canoe suddenly beyond the sharp nose of a jutting
point fairly into the bosom of a great, still body of water that spread
away northeastward in a widening stretch, its farthest boundary a watery
junction with the horizon.

There were three men in the canoe. One squatted forward, another rested
his body on his heels in the after end. These two were swarthy, stockily
built men, scantily clad, moccasins on their feet, and worn felt hats
crowning lank, black hair long innocent of a barber's touch.

The third man sat amidships in a little space left among goods that were
piled to the top of the deep-sided craft. He was no more like his
companions than the North that surrounded them with its silent waterways
and hushed forests is like the tropical jungle. He was a fairly big
man, taller, wider-bodied than the other two. His hair was a
reddish-brown, his eyes as blue as the arched dome from which the hot
sun shed its glare.

He had on a straight-brimmed straw hat which in the various shifts of
the long water route and many camps had suffered disaster, so that a
part of the brim drooped forlornly over his left ear. This headgear had
preserved upon his brow the pallid fairness of his skin. From the
eyebrows down his face was in the last stages of sunburn, reddened,
minute shreds of skin flaking away much as a snake's skin sheds in
August. Otherwise he was dressed, like a countless multitude of other
men who walk the streets of every city in North America, in a
conventional sack suit, and shoes that still bore traces of blacking.
The paddlers were stripped to thin cotton shirts and worn overalls. The
only concession their passenger had made to the heat was the removal of
his laundered collar. Apparently his dignity did not permit him to lay
aside his coat and vest. As they cleared the point a faint breeze
wavered off the open water. He lifted his hat and let it play about his
moist hair.