cabin, his knees were
beginning to ache and his ankles were growing heavy. It was ridiculous.
Inconceivable, as the Frenchman had said to Marie. He was soft. He was
only half a man. How long would he last? How long before he would have
to cry quits, like a whipped boy? How long before his legs would crumple
up under him, and his lungs give out? How long before Father Roland,
hiding his contempt, would have to send him back?

A sense of shame--shame and anger--swept through him, heating his brain,
setting his teeth hard, filling him again with a grim determination. For
the second time that day his fighting blood rose. It surged through his
veins in a flood, beating down the old barriers, clearing away the
obstructions of his doubts and his fears, and filling him with the
_desire_ to go on--the desire to fight it out, to punish himself as he
deserved to be punished, and to win in the end. Father Roland, glancing
back in benignant solicitude, saw the new glow in David's eyes. He saw,
also, his parted lips and the quickness of his breath. With a sharp
command he stopped Mukoki and the dogs.

"Half a mile at a time is enough for a beginner," he said to David.
"Back off your shoes and ride the next half mile."

David shook his head.

"Go on," he said, tersely, saving his wind. "I'm just finding myself."

Father Roland loaded and lighted his pipe. The aroma of the tobacco
filled David's nostrils as they went on. Clouds of smoke wreathed the
Little Missioner's shoulders as he followed the trail ahead of him. It
was comforting, that smoke. It warmed David with a fresh desire. His
exertion was clearing out his lungs. He was inhaling balsam and spruce,
a mighty tonic of dry forest air, and he felt also the craving to smoke.
But he knew that he could not afford the waste of breath. His snow shoes
were growing heavier and heavier, and back of his knees the tendons
seemed preparing to snap. He kept on, at last counting his steps. He was
determined to make a mile. He was ready to groan when a sudden twist in
the trail brought them out of the forest to the edge of a lake whose
frozen surface stretched ahead of them for miles. Mukoki stopped the
dogs. With a gasp David floundered to the sledge and sat down.

"Finding myself," he managed to say. "Just--finding myself!"

It was a triumph for him--the last half of that mile. He knew it. He
felt it. Through the white haze of his breath he looked out over the
lake. It was wonderfully