in a straight line.

"Denis is determined to have a good supper and sleep to-night," said
Pere Michaux; "no camp to make in the snow _this_ evening." Some minutes
later the mail-train passed, the gaunt old dogs which drew the sledge
never even turning their heads to gaze at the party, but keeping
straight on, having come in a direct line, without a break, from the
point, ten miles distant. The young dogs in Antoine's team pricked up
their ears, and betrayed a disposition to rush after the mail-train;
then Rene and Lebeau, after looking round once or twice, after turning
in their great paws more than usual as they walked, and holding back
resolutely, at length sat deliberately down on their haunches, and
stopped the sledge.

"And thou art entirely right, Rene, and thou too, Lebeau," said old
Antoine. "To waste breath following a mail-train at a gallop is worthy
only of young-dog silliness."

So saying he administered to the recreant members of the team enough
chastisement to make them forget the very existence of mail-trains,
while Rene and Lebeau waited composedly to see justice done; they then
rose in a dignified manner and started on, the younger dogs following
now with abject humility. As they came nearer the village the western
pass opened out before them, a long narrow vista of ice, with the dark
shore-line on each side, and the glow of the red sunset shining
strangely through, as though it came from a tropical country beyond. A
sledge was crossing down in the west--a moving speck; the scene was as
wild and arctic as if they had been travelling on Baffin's Bay. The busy
priest gave little attention to the scene, and the others in all the
winters of their lives had seen nothing else: to the Bedouins the great
desert is nothing. Anne noted every feature and hue of the picture, but
unconsciously. She saw it all, but without a comment. Still, she saw it.
She was to see it again many times in after-years--see it in cities, in
lighted drawing-rooms, in gladness and in sorrow, and more than once
through a mist of tears.

Later in the evening, when the moon was shining brightly, and she was on
her way home from the church-house with Rast, she saw a sledge moving
toward the northern point. "There is Pere Michaux, on his way home," she
said. Then, after a moment, "Do you know, Rast, he thinks me dull."

"He would not if he had seen you this evening," replied her companion.

A deep flush, visible even in the moonlight,