as
if dead under the weight of David's hand. Not until David had ceased
talking to him, and had disappeared once more in the direction of the
cabin, did Baree begin devouring the frozen whitefish.

Father Roland meditated in some perplexity when it came to the final
question of Baree.

"We can't put him in with the team," he protested. "All my dogs would be
dead before we reached God's Lake."

David had been thinking of that.

"He will follow me," he said confidently. "We'll simply turn him loose
when we're ready to start."

The Missioner nodded indulgently. Thoreau, who had overheard, shrugged
his shoulders contemptuously. He hated Baree, the beast that would not
yield to a club, and he muttered gruffly:

"And to-night he will join the wolves, m'sieu, and prey like the very
devil on my traps. There will be only one cure for that--a
fox-bait!--poison!"

And the last hour seemed to prove that what Thoreau had said was true.
After dinner the three of them went to Baree, and David unfastened the
chain from the big husky's collar. For a few moments the dog did not
seem to sense his freedom; then, like a shot--so unexpectedly that he
almost took David off his feet--he leaped over the birch log and
disappeared in the forest. The Frenchman was amused.

"The wolves," he reminded softly. "He will be with them to-night,
m'sieu--that outlaw!"

Not until the crack of Mukoki's long, caribou-gut whip had set the
Missioner's eight dogs tense and alert in their traces did Father Roland
return for a moment into the cabin to give Marie the locket. He came
back quickly, and at a signal from him Mukoki wound up the 9-foot lash
of his whip and set out ahead of the dogs. They followed him slowly and
steadily, keeping the broad runners of the sledge in the trail he made.
The Missioner dropped in immediately behind the sledge, and David behind
him. Thoreau spoke a last word to David, in a voice intended for his
ears alone.

"It is a long way to God's Lake, m'sieu, and you are going with a
strange man--a strange man. Some day, if you have not forgotten Pierre
Thoreau, you may tell me what it has been a long time in my heart to
know. The saints be with you, m'sieu!"

He dropped back. His voice rolled after them in a last farewell, in
French, and in Cree, and as David followed close behind the Missioner he
wondered what Thoreau's mysterious words had meant, and why he had not
spoken them until that final moment of their departure.