cky!"

But the Colonel didn't look up till the Boy got quite near, chanting in
his tuneless voice:

"'Grasshoppah sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine,
Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'tater vine--'"

"What's the matter, hey, Colonel? Sorry as all that to see me back?"

"Reckon it's the kind o' sorrah I can bear," said the Colonel. "We
thought you were dead."

"You ought t' known me better. Were you just sendin' out a rescue-party
of one?"

The Colonel nodded. "That party would have started before, but I cut my
foot with the axe the day you left. Where have you been, in the name o'
the nation?"

"Pymeut an' Holy Cross."

"Holy Cross? Holy Moses! _You?_"

"Yes; and do you know, one thing I saw there gave me a serious nervous
shock."

"That don't surprise me. What was it?"

"Sheets. When I came to go to bed--a real bed, Colonel, on legs--I
found I was expected to sleep between sheets, and I just about
fainted."

"That the only shock you had?"

"No, I had several. I saw an angel. I tell you straight, Colonel--you
can bank on what I'm sayin'--that Jesuit outfit's all right."

"Oh, you think so?" The rejoinder came a little sharply.

"Yes, sir, I just do. I think I'd be bigoted not to admit it."

"So, you'll be thick as peas in a pod with the priests now?"

"Well, I'm the one that can afford to be. They won't convert _me!_ And,
from my point o' view, it don't matter what a man is s' long's he's a
decent fella."

The Colonel's only answer was to plunge obliquely uphill.

"Say, Boss, wait for me."

The Colonel looked back. The Boy was holding on to a scrub willow that
put up wiry twigs above the snow.

"Feel as if I'd never get up the last rungs o' this darn ice-ladder!"

"Tired? H'm! Something of a walk to Holy Cross even on a nice mild day
like this." The Colonel made the reflection with obvious satisfaction,
took off his knapsack, and sat down again. The Boy did the same. "The
very day you lit out Father Orloff came up from the Russian mission."

"What's he like?"

"Oh, little fella in petticoats, with a beard an' a high pot-hat, like
a Russian. And that same afternoon we had a half-breed trader fella
here, with two white men. Since that day we haven't seen a human
creature. We bought some furs of the trader. Where'd you get yours?"

"Pymeut. Any news about the strike?"

"Well, the trader fella was sure it was all gammon, and told us stories
of men who'd sacrificed everything and joined a sta