David came up quietly to the door of the smoking compartment where he
had left Father Roland. The Little Missioner was huddled in his corner
near the window. His head hung heavily forward and the shadows of his
black Stetson concealed his face. He was apparently asleep. His hands,
with their strangely developed joints and fingers, lay loosely upon his
knees. For fully half a minute David looked at him without moving or
making a sound, and as he looked, something warm and living seemed to
reach out from the lonely figure of the wilderness preacher that filled
him with a strangely new feeling of companionship. Again he made no
effort to analyze the change in himself; he accepted it as one of the
two or three inexplicable phenomena this night and the storm had
produced for him, and was chiefly concerned in the fact that he was no
longer oppressed by that torment of aloneness which had been a part of
his nights and days for so many months. He was about to speak when he
made up his mind not to disturb the other. So certain was he that Father
Roland was asleep that he drew away from the door on the tips of his
toes and reëntered the coach.
He did not stop in the first or second car, though there were plenty of
empty seats and people were rousing themselves into more cheerful
activity. He passed through one and then the other to the third coach,
and sat down when he came to the seat he had formerly occupied. He did
not immediately look at the woman across the aisle. He did not want her
to suspect that he had come back for that purpose. When his eyes did
seek her in a casual sort of way he was disappointed.
She was almost covered in her coat. He caught only the gleam of her
thick, dark hair, and the shape of one slim hand, white as paper in the
lampglow. He knew that she was not asleep, for he saw her shoulders
move, and the hand shifted its position to hold the coat closer about
her. The whistling of the approaching engine, which could be heard
distinctly now, had no apparent effect on her. For ten minutes he sat
staring at all he could see of her--the dark glow of her hair and the
one ghostly white hand. He moved, he shuffled his feet, he coughed; he
made sure she knew he was there, but she did not look up. He was sorry
that he had not brought Father Roland with him in the first place, for
he was certain that if the Little Missioner had seen the grief and the
despair in her eyes--the hope almost burned out--he would have gone to
her and said things which he had found it impossible to say when the
opportunity had come to him. He rose again from his seat as the powerful
snow-engine and its consort coupled on to the train. The shock almost
flung him off his feet. Even then she did not raise her head.
A second time he returned to the smoking compartment.
Father Roland was no longer huddled down in his corner. He was on his
feet, his hands thrust deep down into his trousers pockets, and he was
whistling softly as David came in. His hat lay on the seat. It was the
first time David had seen his round, rugged, weather-reddened face
without the big Stetson. He looked younger and yet older; his face, as
David saw it there in the lampglow, had something in the ruddy glow and
deeply lined strength of it that was almost youthful. But his thick,
shaggy hair was very gray. The train had begun to move. He turned to the
window for a moment, and then looked at David.
"We are under way," he said. "Very soon I will be getting off."
David sat down.
"It is some distance beyond the divisional point ahead--this cabin where
you get off?" he asked.
"Yes, twenty or twenty-five miles. There is nothing but a cabin and two
or three log outbuildings there--where Thoreau, the Frenchman, has his
fox pens, as I told you. It is not a regular stop, but the train will
slow down to throw off my dunnage and give me an easy jump. My dogs and
Indian are with Thoreau."
"And from there--from Thoreau's--it is a long distance to the place you
call home?"
The Little Missioner rubbed his hands in a queer rasping way. The
movement of those rugged hands and the curious, chuckling laugh that
accompanied it, radiated a sort of cheer. They were expressions of more
than satisfaction. "It's a great many miles to my own cabin, but it's
home--all home--after I get into the forests. My cabin is at the lower
end of God's Lake, three hundred miles by dogs and sledge from
Thoreau's--three hundred miles as straight north as a _niskuk_ flies."
"A _niskuk_?" said David.
"Yes--a gray goose."
"Don't you have crows?"
"A few; but they're as crooked in flight as they are in morals. They're
scavengers, and they hang down pretty close to the line of rail--close
to civilization, where there's a lot of scavenging to be done, you
know."
For the second time that night David found a laugh on his lips.
"Then--you don't like civilization?"
"My heart is in the Northland," replied Father Roland, and David saw a
sudden change in the other's face, a dying out of the light in his eyes,
a tenseness that came and went like a flash at the corners of his mouth.
In that same moment he saw the Missioner's hand tighten, and the fingers
knot themselves curiously and then slowly relax.
One of these hands dropped on David's shoulder, and Father Roland became
the questioner.
"You have been thinking, since you left me a little while ago?" he
asked.
"Yes. I came back. But you were asleep."
"I haven't been asleep. I have been awake every minute. I thought 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 a pretty decent sort? Did you ever know of a man who loved
pie--who'd go out of his way to get pie--that didn't have a heart in him
bigger than a pumpkin? I guess you didn't. If a man's got a good stomach
he isn't a grouch, and he won't stick a knife into your back; but if he
eats from habit--or necessity--he isn't a beautiful character in the
eyes of nature, and there's pretty sure to be a cog loose somewhere in
his makeup. I'm a grub-scientist, David. I warn you of that before we
get off at Thoreau's. I love to eat, and the Frenchman knows it. That's
why I can smell things in that cabin, forty miles away."
He was rubbing his hands briskly and his face radiated such joyous
anticipation as he talked that David unconsciously felt the spirit of
his enthusiasm. He had gripped one of Father Roland's hands and was
pumping it up and down almost before he realized what he was doing.
"I'll get off with you at Thoreau's," he exclaimed, "and later, if I
feel as I do now, and you still want my company, I'll go on with you
into the north country!"
A slight flush rose into his thin cheeks and his eyes shone with a
freshly lighted enthusiasm. As Father Roland saw the change in him his
hands closed over David's.
"I knew you had a splendid stomach in you from the moment you finished
telling me about the woman," he cried exultantly. "I knew it, David. And
I do want your company--I want it as I never wanted the company of
another man!"
"That is the strange part of it," replied David, a slight quiver in his
voice. He drew away his hands suddenly and with a jerk brought himself
to his feet. "Good God! look at me!" he cried. "I am a wreck,
physically. It would be a lie if you told me I am not. See these
hands--these arms! I'm down and out. I'm weak as a dog, and the stomach
you speak of is a myth. I haven't eaten a square meal in a year. Why do
you want me as a companion? Why do you think it would be a pleasure for
you to drag a decrepit misfit like myself up into a country like yours?
Is it because of your--your code of faith? Is it because you think you
may save a soul?"
He was breathing deeply. As he excoriated himself and bared his weakness
the hot blood crept slowly into his face.
"Why do you want me to go?" he demanded. "Why don't you ask some man
with red blood in his veins and a heart that hasn't been burned out? Why
have you asked me?"
Father Roland made as if to speak, and then caught himself. Again for a
passing flash there came that mysterious change in him, a sudden dying
out of the enthusiasm in his eyes, and a grayness in his face that came
and went like a shadow of pain. In another moment he was saying:
"I'm not playing the part of the good Samaritan, David. I've got a
personal and a selfish reason for wanting you with me. It may be
possible--just possible, I say--that I need you even more than you will
need me." He held out his hand. "Let me have your checks and I'll go
ahead to the baggage car and arrange to have your dunnage thrown off
with mine at the Frenchman's."
David gave him the checks, and sat down after he had gone. He began to
realize that, for the first time in many months, he was taking a deep
and growing interest in matters outside his own life. The night and its
happenings had kindled a strange fire within him, and the warmth of this
fire ran through his veins and set his body and his brain tingling
curiously. New forces were beginning to fight his own malady. As he sat
alone after Father Roland had gone, his mind had dragged itself away
from the East; he thought of a woman, but it was the woman in the third
coach back. Her wonderful eyes haunted him--their questing despair, the
strange pain that seemed to burn like glowing coals in their depths. He
had seen not only misery and hopelessness in them; he had seen tragedy;
and they troubled him. He made up his mind to tell Father Roland about
her when he returned from the baggage car, and take him to her.
And who was Father Roland? For the first time he asked himself the
question. There was something of mystery about the Little Missioner that
he found as strange and unanswerable as the thing he had seen in the
eyes of the woman in the third car back. Father Roland had not been
asleep when he looked in and saw him hunched down in his corner near the
window, just as a little later he had seen the woman crumpled down in
hers. It was as if the same oppressing hand had been upon them in those
moments. And why had Father Roland asked him of all men to go with him
as a comrade into the North? Following this he asked himself the still
more puzzling question: Why had he accepted the invitation?
He stared out into the night, as if that night held an answer for him.
He had not noticed until now that the storm had ceased its beating
against the window. It was not so black outside. With his face close to
the glass he could make out the dark wall of the forest. From the rumble
of the trucks under him he knew that the two engines were making good
time. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter of twelve. They had been
travelling for half an hour and he figured that the divisional point
ahead would be reached by midnight. It seemed a very short time after
that when he heard the tiny bell in his watch tinkle off the hour of
twelve. The last strokes were drowned in a shrill blast of the engine
whistle, and a moment later he caught the dull glow of lights in the
hollow of a wide curve the train was making.
Father Roland had told him the train would wait at this point fifteen
minutes, and even now he heard the clanging of handbells announcing the
fact that hot coffee, sandwiches, and ready-prepared suppers were
awaiting the half-starved passengers. The trucks grated harshly, the
whirring groan of the air-brakes ran under him like a great sigh, and
suddenly he was looking down into the face of a pop-eyed man who was
clanging a bell, with all the strength of his right arm, under his
window, and who, with this labour, was emitting a husky din of
"Supper--supper 'ot an' ready at the Royal" in his vain effort to drown
the competition of a still more raucous voice that was bellowing: "'Ot
steaks _an'_ liver'n onions at the Queen Alexandry!" As David made no
movement the man under his window stretched up his neck and yelled a
personal invitation, "W'y don't you come out and eat, old chap? You've
got fifteen minutes an' mebby 'arf an 'our; supper--supper 'ot an' ready
at the Royal!" Up and down the length of the dimly lighted platform
David heard that clangor of bells, and as if determined to capture his
stomach or die, the pop-eyed man never moved an inch from his window,
while behind him there jostled and hurried an eager and steadily growing
crowd of hungry people.
David thought again of the woman in the third coach back. Was she
getting off here, he wondered? He went to the door of the smoking
compartment and waited another half minute for Father Roland. It was
quite evident that his delay was occasioned by some difficulty in the
baggage car, a difficulty which perhaps his own presence might help to
straighten out. He hesitated between the thought of joining the
Missioner and the stronger impulse to go back into the third coach. He
was conscious of a certain feeling of embarrassment as he returned for
the third time to look at her. He was not anxious for her to see him
again unless Father Roland was with him. His hesitancy, if it was not
altogether embarrassment, was caused by the fear that she might quite
naturally regard his interest in a wrong light. He was especially
sensitive upon that point, and had always been. The fact that she was
not a young woman, and that he had seen her dark hair finely threaded
with gray, made no difference with him in his peculiarly chivalric
conception of man's attitude toward woman. He did not mean to impress
himself upon her; this time he merely wanted to see whether she had
roused herself, or had left the car. At least this was the trend of his
mental argument as he entered the third coach.
The car was empty. The woman was gone. Even the old man who had hobbled
in on crutches at the last station had hobbled out again in response to
the clanging bells. When he came to the seat where the woman had been,
David paused, and would have turned back had he not chanced to look out
through the window. He was just in time to catch the quick upturn of a
passing face. It was _her_ face. She saw him and recognized him; she
seemed for a moment to hesitate; her eyes were filled again with that
haunting fire; her lips trembled as if about to speak; and then, like a
mysterious shadow, she drifted out of his vision into darkness.
For a space he remained in his bent and staring attitude, trying to
pierce the gloom into which she had disappeared. As he drew back from
the window, wondering what she must think of him, his eyes fell to the
seat where she had been sitting, and he saw that she had left something
behind.
It was a very thin package, done up in a bit of newspaper and tied with
a red string. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It was
five or six inches in width and perhaps eight in length, and was not
more than half an inch in thickness. The newspaper in which the object
was wrapped was worn until the print was almost obliterated.
Again he looked out through the window. Was it a trick of his eyes, he
wondered, or did he see once more that pale and haunting face in the
gloom just beyond the lampglow? His fingers closed a little tighter upon
the thin packet in his hand. At least he had found an excuse; if she was
still there--if he could find her--he had an adequate apology for going
to her. She had forgotten something; it was simply a matter of courtesy
on his part to return it. As he alighted into the half foot of snow on
the platform he could have given no other reason for his action. His
mind could not clarify itself; it had no cohesiveness of purpose or of
emotion at this particular juncture. It was as if a strange and magnetic
undertow were drawing him after her. And he obeyed the impulse. He began
seeking for her, with the thin packet in his hand.