nd had won. There was a new lustre in his eyes. David
wondered whether it was a trick of his imagination that made him think
the lines in the Missioner's face were not so deep, that he stood
straighter, and that there was at times a deep and vibrant note in his
voice which he had not heard before.

During these days David was trying hard to make himself believe that no
reasonable combination of circumstances could have associated Tavish
with the girl whose picture he kept in the breast pocket of his coat.
He succeeded in a way. He tried also to dissociate the face in the
picture from a living personality. In this he failed. More and more the
picture became a living thing for him. He found a great comfort in his
possession of it. He made up his mind that he would keep it, and that
its sweet face, always on the point of speaking to him, should go with
him wherever he went, guiding him in a way--a companion. He found that,
in hours when the darkness and the emptiness of his life oppressed him,
the face gave him new hope, and he saw new light. He ceased to think of
it as a picture, and one night, speaking half aloud, he called her
Little Sister. She seemed nearer to him after that. Unconsciously his
hand learned the habit of going to his breast pocket when they were
travelling, to make sure that she was there. He would have suffered
physical torment before he would have confided all this to any living
soul, but the secret thought that was growing more and more in his heart
he told to Baree. The dog came into their camps now, but not until the
Missioner and Mukoki had gone to bed. He would cringe down near David's
feet, lying there motionless, oblivious of the other dogs and showing no
inclination to disturb them. He was there on the tenth night, looking
steadily at David with his two bloodshot eyes, wondering what it was
that his master held in his hands. From the lips and eyes of the Girl,
trembling and aglow in the firelight, David looked at Baree. In the
bloodshot eyes he saw the immeasurable faith of an adoring slave. He
knew that Baree would never leave him. And the Girl, looking at him as
steadily as Baree, would never leave him. There was a tremendous thrill
in the thought. He leaned over the dog, and with a tremulous stir in
his voice, he whispered:

"Some day, boy, we may go to her."

Baree shivered with joy. David's voice, whispering to him in that way,
was like a caress, and he whined softly as he crept an inch