gh it like
a golden thread ran for a motif little melodies that had to do with a
man who had staggered into Fort Desolation out of the frozen North,
sick and starved and perhaps wounded, but still indomitably captain of
his soul.

CHAPTER XL

"MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T-EN GUERRE"

Inspector MacLean was present in person when the two man-hunters of
the North-West Mounted returned to Faraway. Their reception was in the
nature of a pageant. Gayly dressed voyageurs and trappers, singing
old river songs that had been handed down to them from their fathers,
unharnessed the dogs and dragged the cariole into town. In it sat
Beresford, still unfit for long and heavy mushing. Beside it slouched
West, head down, hands tied behind his back, the eyes from the matted
face sending sidling messages of hate at the capering crowd. At his
heels moved Morse, grim and tireless, an unromantic figure of dominant
efficiency.

Long before the worn travelers and their escort reached the village,
Jessie could hear the gay lilt of the chantey that heralded their
coming:

"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre,
Mironton-ton-ton, mirontaine."

The girl hummed it herself, heart athrob with excitement. She found
herself joining in the cheer of welcome that rose joyously when the
cavalcade drew into sight. In her cheeks fluttered eager flags of
greeting. Tears brimmed the soft eyes, so that she could hardly
distinguish Tom Morse and Win Beresford, the one lean and gaunt and
grim, the other pale and hollow-eyed from illness, but scattering
smiles of largesse. For her heart was crying, in a paraphrase of the
great parable, "He was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is
found."

Beresford caught sight of the Inspector's face and chuckled like
a schoolboy caught in mischief. This gay procession, with its
half-breeds in tri-colored woolen coats, its gay-plumed voyageurs
suggesting gallant troubadours of old in slashed belts and tassels,
was not quite the sort of return to set Inspector MacLean cheering.
Externally, at least, he was a piece of military machinery. A trooper
did his work, and that ended it. In the North-West Mounted it was not
necessary to make a gala day of it because a constable brought in his
man. If he didn't bring him in--well, that would be another and a
sadder story for the officer who fell down on the assignment.

As soon as Beresford and Morse had disposed of their prisoner and
shaken off their exuberant friends, th