y from the cabin door. Three times he entangled his feet
hopelessly and floundered like a great fish in the snow; then he caught
the "swing" of it and at the end of half an hour began to find a
pleasurable exhilaration, even excitement, in his ability to skim over
the feathery surface of this great white sea without so much as sinking
to his ankle bones. When he slipped the shoes off and stood them up
beside his rifle against the cabin, he was panting. His heart was
pounding. His lungs drank in the cold, balsam-scented air like a suction
pump and expelled each breath with the sibilancy of steam escaping from
a valve.

"Winded!" he gasped. And then, gulping for breath as he looked at Father
Roland, he demanded: "How the devil am I going to keep up with you
fellows on the trail? I'll go bust inside of a mile!"

"And every time you go bust we'll load you on the sledge," comforted the
Missioner, his round face glowing with enthusiastic approval. "You've
done finely, David. Within a fortnight you'll be travelling twenty miles
a day on snow shoes."

He suddenly seemed to think of something that he had forgotten and
fidgeted with his mittens in his hesitation, as if there lay an
unpleasant duty ahead of him. Then he said:

"If there are any letters to write, David ... any business matters...."

"There are no letters," cut in David quickly. "I attended to my affairs
some weeks ago. I am ready."

With a frozen whitefish he returned to Baree. The dog scented him before
the crunch of his footsteps could be heard in the snow, and when he came
out from the thick spruce and balsam into the little open, Baree was
stretched out flat on his belly, his gaunt gray muzzle resting on the
snow between his forepaws. He made no movement as David drew near,
except that curious shivers ran through his body, and his throat
twitched. Thoreau would have analyzed that impassive posture as one of
waiting and watchful treachery; David saw in it a strange yearning, a
deep fear, a hope. Baree, outlawed by man, battered and bleeding as he
lay there, felt for perhaps the first time in his life the thrilling
presence of a friend--a man friend. David approached boldly, and stood
over him. He had forgotten the Frenchman's warning. He was not afraid.
He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched Baree's neck. A
tremor shot through the dog that was like an electric shock; a snarl
gathered in his throat, broke down, and ended in a low whine. He lay