Straight into Beresford’s arms she went.  Safe at last, she began to cry.  The soldier petted her, with gentle words of comfort.

“It’s all right now, little girl.  All over with.  Your father’s here.  See!  He’s coming.  We’ll not let anything harm you.”

McRae took the girl into his arms and held her tight.  His rugged face was twisted with emotion.  A dam of ice melted in his heart.  The voice with which he spoke, broken with feeling, betrayed how greatly he was shaken.

“My bairn!  My wee dawtie!  To God be the thanks.”

She clung to him, trying to control her sobs.  He stroked her hair and kissed her, murmuring Gaelic words of endearment.  A thought pierced him, like a sword-thrust.

He held her at arm’s length, a fierce anxiety in his haggard face.  “Is a’ well wi’ you, lass?” he asked, almost harshly.

She understood his question.  Her level eyes met his.  They held no reservations of shame.  “All’s well with me, Father.  Mr. Whaley was there the whole time.  He stood out against West.  He was my friend.”  She stopped, enough said.

“The Lord be thankit,” he repeated again, devoutly.

Tom Morse, rifle in hand, had come from the edge of the woods and was standing near.  He had heard her first call, had seen her go to the arms of Beresford direct as a hurt child to those of its mother, and he had drawn reasonable conclusions from that.  For under stress the heart reveals itself, he argued, and she had turned simply and instinctively to the man she loved.  He stood now outside the group, silent.  Inside him too a river of ice had melted.  His haunted, sunken eyes told the suffering he had endured.  The feeling that flooded him was deeper than joy.  She had been dead and was alive again.  She had been lost and was found.

“Where have you been?” asked Beresford.  “We’ve been looking for days.”

“In a cabin on Bull Creek.  Mr. Whaley took me there, but West followed.”

“How did you get away?”

“We were out of food.  They went hunting.  West took my snowshoes.  Onistah came.  He saw them coming back and gave me his shoes.  He went and hid in the woods.  But they’ll see his tracks.  They’ll find him.  We must hurry back.”

“Yes,” agreed McRae.  “I’m thinkin’ if West finds the lad, he’ll do him ill.”

Morse spoke for the first time, his voice dry as a chip.  “We’d better hurry on, Beresford and I. You and Miss McRae can bring the sled.”

McRae hesitated, but assented.  There might be desperate need of haste.  “That’ll be the best way.  But you’ll be carefu’, lad.  Yon West’s a wolf.  He’d as lief kill ye baith as look at ye.”

The younger men were out of sight over the brow of the hill long before McRae and Jessie had the dogs harnessed.

“You’ll ride, lass,” the father announced.

She demurred.  “We can go faster if I walk.  Let me drive.  Then you can break trail where the snow’s soft.”