Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/295

D'RI AND I The day came when D'ri and I were to meet the ladies. We started early that morning of the 12th. Long before daylight we were moving rapidly down-river in our canoes.

I remember seeing a light flash up and die away in the moonlit mist of the river soon after starting.

"The light!" D'ri whispered. "There 't goes ag'in!"

I had heard the river folk tell often of this weird thing—one of the odd phenomena of the St. Lawrence.

"Comes alwus where folks hev been drownded," said D'ri. "Thet air's what I've hearn tell."

It was, indeed, the accepted theory of the fishermen, albeit many saw in the boogy light a warning to mark the place of forgotten murder, and bore away.

The sun came up in a clear sky, and soon, far and wide, its light was tossing in the rippletops. We could see them glowing miles away. We were both armed with sabre and pistols, for that river was the very highway of adventure in those days of the war.