The Missioner dropped in immediately behind the sledge, and David behind
him. Thoreau spoke a last word to David, in a voice intended for his
ears alone.
"It is a long way to God's Lake, m'sieu, and you are going with a
strange man--a strange man. Some day, if you have not forgotten Pierre
Thoreau, you may tell me what it has been a long time in my heart to
know. The saints be with you, m'sieu!"
He dropped back. His voice rolled after them in a last farewell, in
French, and in Cree, and as David followed close behind the Missioner he
wondered what Thoreau's mysterious words had meant, and why he had not
spoken them until that final moment of their departure. "A strange man!
The saints be with you!" That last had seemed to him almost a warning.
He looked at Father Roland's broad back; for the first time he noticed
how heavy and powerful his shoulders were for his height. Then the
forest swallowed them--a vast, white, engulfing world of silence and
mystery. What did it hold for him? What did it portend? His blood was
stirred by an unfamiliar and subdued excitement. An almost unconscious
movement carried one of his mittened hands to his breast pocket. Through
the thickness of his coat he could feel it--the picture.
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