"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.
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