Part 69 (1/2)

”Oh, it is not we,” said Father Brachet; ”it is made by ze Sisters. Zey shall know zat you were pleased.”

Father Richmond held the Boy's hand a moment.

”I see you go, my son, but I shall see you return.”

”No, Father, I shall hardly come this way again.”

Father Brachet, smiling, watched them start up the long trail.

”I sink we shall meet again,” were his last words.

”What does he mean?” asked the Colonel, a little high and mightily.

”What plan has he got for a meeting?”

”Same plan as you've got, I s'pose. I believe you both call it 'Heaven.'”

The Holy Cross thermometer had registered twenty degrees below zero, but the keen wind blowing down the river made it seem more like forty below. When they stopped to lunch, they had to crouch down behind the sled to stand the cold, and the Boy found that his face and ears were badly frost-bitten. The Colonel discovered that the same thing had befallen the toes of his left foot. They rubbed the afflicted members, and tried not to let their thoughts stray backwards. The Jesuits had told them of an inhabited cabin twenty-three miles up the river, and they tried to fix their minds on that. In a desultory way, when the wind allowed it, they spoke of Minook, and of odds and ends they'd heard about the trail. They spoke of the Big Chimney Cabin, and of how at Anvik they would have their last shave. The one subject neither seemed anxious to mention was Holy Cross. It was a little ”marked,” the Colonel felt; but he wasn't going to say the first word, since he meant to say the last.

About five o'clock the gale went down, but it came on to snow. At seven the Colonel said decidedly: ”We can't make that cabin to-night.”

”Why not?”

”Because I'm not going any further, with this foot--” He threw down the sled-rope, and limped after wood for the fire.

The Boy tilted the sled up by an ice-hummock, and spread the new canvas so that it gave some scant shelter from the snow. Luckily, for once, the wind how grown quite lamb-like--for the Yukon. It would be thought a good stiff breeze almost anywhere else.

Directly they had swallowed supper the Colonel remarked: ”I feel as ready for my bed as I did Sat.u.r.day night.”

Ah! Sat.u.r.day night--that was different. They looked at each other with the same thought.

”Well, that bed at Holy Cross isn't any whiter than this,” laughed the Boy.

But the Colonel was not to be deceived by this light and airy reference. His own unwilling sentiments were a guide to the Boy's, and he felt it inc.u.mbent upon him to restore the Holy Cross incident to its proper proportions. Those last words of Father Brachet's bothered him.

Had they been ”gettin' at” the Boy?

”You think all that mission business mighty wonderful--just because you run across it in Alaska.”

”And isn't it wonderful at all?”

The Boy spoke dreamily, and, from force of old habit, held out his mittened hands to the unavailing fire.

The Colonel gave a prefatory grunt of depreciation, but he was pulling his blankets out from under the stuff on the sled.

The Boy turned his head, and watched him with a little smile. ”I'll admit that I always _used_ to think the Jesuits were a shady lot--”

”So they are--most of 'em.”

”Well, I don't know about 'most of 'em.' You and Mac used to talk a lot about the 'motives' of the few I do know. But as far as I can see, every creature who comes up to this country comes to take something out of it--except those Holy Cross fellas. They came to bring something.”