l greater sledge load
of supplies that found their way in this manner of exchange into the
shacks and tepees of the forest people.

"If I were only rich!" said Father Roland one night at the Chateau, when
it was storming dismally outside. "But I have nothing, David. I can do
only a tenth of what I would like to do. There are only eighty families
in this country of mine, and I have figured that a hundred dollars a
family, spent down there and not at the Post, would keep them all in
comfort through the longest and hardest winter. A hundred dollars, in
Winnipeg, would buy as much as an Indian trapper could get at the Post
for a thousand dollars' worth of fur, and five hundred dollars is a good
catch. It is terrible, but what can I do? I dare not buy their furs and
sell them for my people, because the Company would blacklist the whole
lot and it would be a great calamity in the end. But if I had money--if
I could do it with my own...."

David had been thinking of that. In the late January snow two teams went
down to Thoreau in place of one. Mukoki had charge of them, and with him
went an even half of what David had brought with him--fifteen hundred
dollars in gold certificates.

"If I live I'm going to make them a Christmas present of twice that
amount each year," he said. "I can afford it. I fancy that I shall take
a great pleasure in it, and that occasionally I shall return into this
country to make a visit."

It was the first time that he had spoken as though he would not remain
with the Missioner indefinitely. But the conviction that the time was
not far away when he would be leaving him had been growing within him
steadily. He kept it to himself. He fought against it even. But it
grew. And, curiously enough, it was strongest when Father Roland was in
the locked room playing softly on the violin. David never mentioned the
room. He feigned an indifference to its very existence. And yet in spite
of himself the mystery of it became an obsession with him. Something
within it seemed to reach out insistently and invite him in, like a
spirit chained there by the Missioner himself, crying for freedom. One
night they returned to the Chateau through a blizzard from the cabin of
a half-breed whose wife was sick, and after their supper the Missioner
went into the mystery-room. He played the violin as usual. But after
that there was a long silence. When Father Roland came out, and seated
himself opposite David at the small table