“Among friends of the forests, David, never speak of pay.”

“But this skin!  It is beautiful—­valuable....”

“And it is yours,” said Father Roland.  “I am glad you mentioned payment to me, and not to Thoreau or Marie.  They might not have understood, and it would have hurt them.  If there had been anything to pay, they would have mentioned it in the giving; I would have mentioned it.  That is a fine point of etiquette, isn’t it?”

Slowly there came a look into David’s face which the other did not at first understand.  After a moment he said, without looking at the Missioner, and in a voice that had a curious hard note in it: 

“But for this ...  Marie will let me give her something in return—­a little something I have no use for now?  A little gift—­my thanks—­my friendship....”

He did not wait for the Missioner to reply, but went to one of his two leather bags.  He unlocked the one in which he had placed the photograph of the girl.  Out of it he took a small plush box.  It was so small that it lay in the palm of his hand as he held it out to Father Roland.

Deeper lines had gathered about his mouth.

“Give this to Marie—­for me.”

Father Roland took the box.  He did not look at it.  Steadily he gazed into David’s eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A locket,” replied David.  “It belonged to her.  In it is a picture—­her picture—­the only one I have.  Will you—­please—­destroy the picture before you give the locket to Marie?”

Father Roland saw the quick, sudden throb in David’s throat.  He gripped the little box in his hand until it seemed as though he would crush it, and his heart was beating with the triumph of a drum.  He spoke but one word, his eyes meeting David’s eyes, but that one word was a whisper from straight out of his soul, and the word was: 

“Victory!”

CHAPTER VII

Father Roland slipped the little plush box into his pocket as he and David went out to join Thoreau.  They left the cabin together, Marie lifting her eyes from her work in a furtive glance to see if the stranger was wearing her cap.

A wild outcry from the dogs greeted the three men as they appeared outside the door, and for the first time David saw with his eyes what he had only heard last night.  Among the balsams and spruce close to the cabin there were fully a score of the wildest and most savage-looking dogs he had ever beheld.  As he stood for a moment, gazing about him, three things impressed themselves upon him in a flash:  it was a glorious day, it was so cold that he felt a curious sting in the air, and not one of those long-haired, white-fanged beasts straining at their leashes possessed a kennel, or even a brush shelter.  It was this last fact that struck him most forcefully.  Inherently he was a lover of animals, and he believed these four-footed