clear, and the sun was shining. The surface of
the lake was like an untracked carpet of white sprinkled thickly with
tiny diamonds where the sunlight fell on its countless billions of snow
crystals. Three or four miles away he could see the dark edge of the
forest on the other side. Up and down the lake the distance was greater.
He had never seen anything like it. It was marvellous--like a dream
picture. And he was not cold as he looked at it. He was warm, even
uncomfortably warm. The air he breathed was like a new kind of fuel. It
gave him the peculiar sensation of feeling _larger_ inside; he seemed to
drink it in; it expanded his lungs; he could feel his heart pumping
with an audible sound. There was nothing in the majesty and wonder of
the scene about him to make him laugh, but he laughed. It was
exultation, an involuntary outburst of the change that was working
within him. He felt, suddenly, that a dark and purposeless world had
slipped behind him. It was gone. It was as if he had come out of a dark
and gloomy cavern, in which the air had been vitiated and in which he
had been cramped for breath--a cavern which fluttered with the uneasy
ghosts of things, poisonous things. Here was the sun. A sky blue as
sapphire. A great expanse. A wonder-world. Into this he had escaped!

That was the thought in his mind as he looked at Father Roland. The
Little Missioner was looking at him with an effulgent satisfaction in
his face, a satisfaction that was half pride, as though he had achieved
something that was to his own personal glory.

"You've beat me, David," he exulted. "The first time I had snow shoes on
I didn't make one half that distance before I was tangled up like a fish
in a net!" He turned to Mukoki. "_Mey-oo iss e chikao!_" he cried.
"Remember?" and the Indian nodded, his leathery face breaking into a
grin.

David felt a new pleasure at their approbation. He had evidently done
well, exceedingly well. And he had been afraid of himself! Apprehension
gave way to confidence. He was beginning to experience the exquisite
thrill of fighting against odds.

He made no objection this time when Father Roland made a place for him
on the sledge.

"We'll have four miles of this lake," the Missioner explained to him,
"and the dogs will make it in an hour. Mukoki and I will both break
trail."

As they set off David found his first opportunity to see the real
Northland in action--the clean, sinuous movement of the men ahead of