She waved her arms madly and mingled her voice with Poleon's until a
black-robed figure appeared beside the pilot-house.

"Father Barnum!" she screamed, and, recognizing her, he signalled back.

Soon they were alongside, and a pair of Siwash deckhands lifted Necia
aboard, Doret following after, the painter of the Peterborough in his
teeth. He dragged both canoes out of the boiling tide, and laid them
bottom up on the forward deck, then climbed the narrow little stairs to
find Necia in the arms of a benignant, white-haired priest, the
best-beloved man on the Yukon, who broke away from the girl to greet
the Frenchman, his kind face alight with astonishment.

"What is all this I hear? Slowly, Doret, slowly! My little girl is
talking too furiously for these poor old wits to follow. I can't
understand; I am amazed. What is this tale?"

Together they told him, while his blue eyes now opened wide with
wonder, now grew soft with pity, then blazed with indignation. When
they had finished he laid his hand upon Doret's shoulder.

"My son, I thank God for your good body and your clean heart. You saved
our Necia, and you will be rewarded. As to this--this--man Runnion, we
must find him, and he must be sent out of the country; this new, clean
land of ours is no place for such as he. You will be our pilot, Poleon,
and guide us to the spot."

It required some pressure to persuade the Frenchman, but at last he
consented; and as the afternoon drew to a close the little steamboat
came squattering and wheezing up to the bar where Runnion had built his
fire that morning, and a long, shrill blast summoned him from the point
above. When he did not appear the priest took Poleon and his
round-faced, silent crew of two and went up the bank, but they found no
sign of the crippled man, only a few rags, a trampled patch of brush at
the forest's edge, and--that was all. The springy moss showed no trail;
the thicket gave no answer to their cries, although they spent an hour
in a scattered search and sounded the steamboat's whistle again and
again.

"He's try for walk it back to camp," said Doret. "Mebbe he ain' hurt so
much, after all."

"You must be right," said Father Barnum. "We will keep the steamer
close to this shore, so that he can hail us when we overtake him."

And so they resumed their toilsome trip; but mile after mile fell
behind them, and still no voice came from the woods, no figure hailed
them. Doret, inscrutable and silent