Once they ran swiftly to it through a night
blizzard; again it came, three in a family, so far to the west that it
was out of Father Roland's beaten trails; and again he saw it in the
Madonna-like face of a young French girl, who had died clutching a cross
to her breast. It was this girl's white face, sweet as a child's and
strangely beautiful in death, that stirred David most deeply. She must
have been about the age of the girl whose picture he carried next his
heart.
Soon after this, early in March, he had definitely made up his mind.
There was no reason now why he should not _go on_. He was physically
fit. Three months had hardened him until he was like a rock. He believed
that he had more than regained his weight. He could beat Father Roland
with either rifle or pistol, and in one day he had travelled forty miles
on snow shoes. That was when they had arrived just in time to save the
life of Jean Croisset's little girl, who lived over on the Big Thunder.
The crazed father had led them a mad race, but they had kept up with
him. And just in time. There had not been an hour to lose. After that
Croisset and his half-breed wife would have laid down their lives for
Father Roland--and for him. For the forest people had begun to accept
him as a part of Father Roland; more and more he could see their growing
love for him, their gladness when he came, their sorrow when he left,
and it gave him what he thought of as a sort of _filling_ satisfaction,
something he had never quite fully experienced before in all his life.
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