CHAPTER XIII

For two or three minutes after Father Roland had disappeared in the forest David and Mukoki stood without moving.  Amazed and a little stunned by the change they had seen in the Missioner’s ghastly face, and perplexed by the strangeness of his voice and the unsteadiness of his walk as he had gone away from them, they looked expectantly for him to return out of the shadows of the timber.  His last words had come to them with metallic hardness, and their effect, in a way, had been rather appalling:  “There will be—­no prayer.”  Why?  The question was in Mukoki’s gleaming, narrow eyes as he faced the dark spruce, and it was on David’s lips as he turned at last to look at the Cree.  There was to be no prayer for Tavish!  David felt himself shuddering, when suddenly, breaking the silence like a sinister cackle, an exultant exclamation burst from the Indian, as though, all at once, understanding had dawned upon him.  He pointed to the dead man, his eyes widening.

“Tavish—­he great devil,” he said. “Mon Pere make no prayer. Mey-oo!” and he grinned in triumph, for had he not, during all these months, told his master that Tavish was a devil, and that his cabin was filled with little devils?  “Mey-oo,” he cried again, louder than before.  “A devil!” and with a swift, vengeful movement he sprang to Tavish, caught him by his moccasined feet, and to David’s horror flung him fiercely into the shallow grave.  “A devil!” he croaked again, and like a madman began throwing in the frozen earth upon the body.

David turned away, sickened by the thud of the body and the fall of the clods on its upturned face—­for he had caught a last unpleasant glimpse of the face, and it was staring and grinning up at the stars.  A feeling of dread followed him into the cabin.  He filled the stove, and sat down to wait for Father Roland.  It was a long wait.  He heard Mukoki go away.  The mice rustled about him again.  An hour had passed when he heard a sound at the door, a scraping sound, like the peculiar drag of claws over wood, and a moment later it was followed by a whine that came to him faintly.  He opened the door slowly.  Baree stood just outside the threshold.  He had given him two fish at noon, so he knew that it was not hunger that had brought the dog to the cabin.  Some mysterious instinct had told him that David was alone; he wanted to come in; his yearning gleamed in his eyes as he stood there stiff-legged in the moonlight.  David held out a hand, on the point of enticing him through the door, when he heard the soft crunching of feet in the snow.  A gray shadow, swift as the wind, Baree disappeared.  David scarcely knew when he went.  He was looking into the face of Father Roland.  He backed into the cabin, without speaking, and the Missioner entered.  He was smiling.  He had, to an extent, recovered himself.  He threw off his mittens and rasped his hands over the fire in an effort at cheerfulness.  But there was something forced in his manner, something that he was making a terrific fight to keep under.  He was like one who had been in great mental stress for many days instead of a single hour.  His eyes burned with the smouldering glow of a fever; his shoulders hung loosely as though he had lost the strength to hold them erect; he shivered, David noticed, even as he rubbed his hands and smiled.