ey rubbed the afflicted members,
and tried not to let their thoughts stray backwards. The Jesuits had
told them of an inhabited cabin twenty-three miles up the river, and
they tried to fix their minds on that. In a desultory way, when the
wind allowed it, they spoke of Minook, and of odds and ends they'd
heard about the trail. They spoke of the Big Chimney Cabin, and of how
at Anvik they would have their last shave. The one subject neither
seemed anxious to mention was Holy Cross. It was a little "marked," the
Colonel felt; but he wasn't going to say the first word, since he meant
to say the last.

About five o'clock the gale went down, but it came on to snow. At seven
the Colonel said decidedly: "We can't make that cabin to-night."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not going any further, with this foot--" He threw down the
sled-rope, and limped after wood for the fire.

The Boy tilted the sled up by an ice-hummock, and spread the new canvas
so that it gave some scant shelter from the snow. Luckily, for once,
the wind how grown quite lamb-like--for the Yukon. It would be thought
a good stiff breeze almost anywhere else.

Directly they had swallowed supper the Colonel remarked: "I feel as
ready for my bed as I did Saturday night."

Ah! Saturday night--that was different. They looked at each other with
the same thought.

"Well, that bed at Holy Cross isn't any whiter than this," laughed the
Boy.

But the Colonel was not to be deceived by this light and airy
reference. His own unwilling sentiments were a guide to the Boy's, and
he felt it incumbent upon him to restore the Holy Cross incident to its
proper proportions. Those last words of Father Brachet's bothered him.
Had they been "gettin' at" the Boy?

"You think all that mission business mighty wonderful--just because you
run across it in Alaska."

"And isn't it wonderful at all?"

The Boy spoke dreamily, and, from force of old habit, held out his
mittened hands to the unavailing fire.

The Colonel gave a prefatory grunt of depreciation, but he was pulling
his blankets out from under the stuff on the sled.

The Boy turned his head, and watched him with a little smile. "I'll
admit that I always _used_ to think the Jesuits were a shady lot--"

"So they are--most of 'em."

"Well, I don't know about 'most of 'em.' You and Mac used to talk a lot
about the 'motives' of the few I do know. But as far as I can see,
every creature who comes up to this country comes to