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.  It did not seem like a dead thing.  It beat with life.  It made him strangely unafraid of what might be ahead of him.

Back at the door of the cabin Thoreau stood with one of his big arms encircling Marie’s slim shoulders.

“I tell you it is like taking the life of a puppy, ma cherie,” he was saying.  “It is inconceivable.  It is bloodthirsty.  And yet....”

He opened the door behind them.

“They are gone,” he finished. “Ka Sakhet—­they are gone—­and they will not come back!”

CHAPTER IX

In spite of the portentous significance of this day in his life David could not help seeing and feeling in his suddenly changed environment, as he puffed along behind Father Roland, something that was neither adventure nor romance, but humour.  A whimsical humour at first, but growing grimmer as his thoughts sped.  All his life he had lived in a great city, he had been a part of its life—­a discordant note in it, and yet a part of it for all that.  He had been a fixture in a certain lap of luxury.  That luxury had refined him.  It had manicured him down to a fine point of civilization.  A fine point!  He wanted to laugh, but he had need of all his breath as he clip-clip-clipped on his snow shoes behind the Missioner.  This was the last thing in the world he had dreamed of, all this snow, all this emptiness that loomed up ahead of him, a great world filled only with trees and winter.  He disliked winter; he had always possessed a physical antipathy for snow; romance, for him, was environed in warm climes and sunny seas.  He had made a mistake in telling Father Roland that he was going to British Columbia—­a great mistake.  Undoubtedly he would have kept on.  Japan had been in his mind.  And now here he was headed straight for the north pole—­the Arctic Ocean.  It was enough to make him want to laugh.  Enough to make any sane person laugh.  Even now, only half a mile from Thoreau’s cabin, his knees were beginning to ache and his ankles were growing heavy.  It was ridiculous.  Inconceivable, as the Frenchman had said to Marie.  He was soft.  He was only half a man.  How long would he last?  How long before he would have to cry quits, like a whipped boy?  How long before his legs would crumple up under him, and his lungs give out?  How long before Father Roland, hiding his contempt, would have to send him back?