If I wake in the woods every dawn for a year, I can never grow stale to
the miracle of it. I was on no pleasant errand, yet I could not help
tingling at the cleanness of the air and at the smell of the mint that
our canoes had crushed. I hugged the shore like a shadow, and rounded
a little bend. It was as I had thought. We had landed on the western
side of a small island, and before me, not a quarter hour's paddling
away, stretched the shore line of the peninsula.

Here was my risk. I paddled softly across the open stretch, but that
availed me little, for I was an unprotected target. I slanted my
course northward, and strained my gaze along the shore. Yet I hardly
expected to find anything. It came like a surprise when I saw in
advance of me a light canoe drawn up on the sand.

I landed, drew my own canoe to shelter, and reconnoitred. I had both
knife and musket ready, and I pulled myself over logs as silent as a
snake. Yet, cautious as I was, little furtive rustlings preceded me.
The wood folks had seen me and were spreading the warning. Unless
Pemaou were asleep I had little chance of surprising him. Yet I crept
on till I saw through the leaves the outlines of a brown figure on the
ground.

I stopped. I had been trying for a good many hours to balance the
right and wrong of this matter in my mind, and my reason had insisted
to my inclination that, if I had opportunity, I must kill Pemaou
without warning. We respect no code in dealing with a rattlesnake, and
I must use this Huron like the vermin that he was. So I had taught
myself.