once
that I heard a movement at the door but when I looked up there was no
one there. You told me to-day that you were going west--to the British
Columbia mountains?"

David nodded. Father Roland sat down beside him.

"Of course you didn't tell me why you were going," he went on. "I have
made my own guess since you told me about the woman, David. Probably you
will never know just why your story has struck so deeply home with me
and why it seemed to make you more a son to me than a stranger. I have
guessed that in going west you are simply wandering. You are fighting in
a vain and foolish sort of way to run away from something. Isn't that
it? You are running away--trying to escape the one thing in the whole
wide world that you cannot lose by flight--and that's memory. You can
_think_ just as hard in Japan or the South Sea Islands as you can on
Fifth Avenue in New York, and sometimes the farther away you get the
more maddening your thoughts become. It isn't travel you want, David.
It's blood--_red_ blood. And for putting blood into you, and courage,
and joy of just living and breathing, there's nothing on the face of the
earth like--_that_!"

He reached an arm past David and pointed to the night beyond the car
window.

"You mean the storm, and the snow----"

"Yes; storm, and snow, and sunshine, and forests--the tens of thousands
of miles of our Northland that you've seen only the edges of. That's
what I mean. But, first of all"--and again the Little Missioner rubbed
his hands--"first of all, I'm thinking of the supper that's waiting for
us at Thoreau's. Will you get off and have supper with me at the
Frenchman's, David? After that, if you decide not to go up to God's Lake
with me, Thoreau can bring you and your luggage back to the station with
his dog team. Such a supper--or breakfast--it will be! I can smell it
now, for I know Thoreau--his fish, his birds, the tenderest steaks in
the forests! I can hear Thoreau cursing because the train hasn't come,
and I'll wager he's got fish and caribou tenderloin and partridges just
ready for a final turn in the roaster. What do you say? Will you get off
with me?"

"It is a tempting offer to a hungry man, Father."

The Little Missioner chuckled elatedly.

"Hunger!--that's the real medicine of the gods, David, when the belt
isn't drawn too tight. If I want to know the nature and quality of a man
I ask about his stomach. Did you ever know a man who loved to eat who
wasn't of