“I thought I had lost my key,” he laughed, a bit nervously; then he added, with a deep breath:  “It’s snowing to-night.  A heavy snow, and there will be good sledging for a few days.  God knows I don’t want you to leave me, but if it must be—­we should take advantage of this snow.  It will be the last.  Mukoki and I will go with you as far as the Reindeer Lake country, two hundred miles northwest.  David—­must you go?”

It seemed to David that two tiny fists were pounding against his breast, where the picture lay.

“Yes, I must go,” he said.  “I have quite made up my mind to that.  I must go.”

CHAPTER XV

Ten days after that night when he had gone into the mystery-room at the Chateau, David and Father Roland clasped hands in a final farewell at White Porcupine House, on the Cochrane River, 270 miles from God’s Lake.  It was something more than a hand-shake.  The Missioner made no effort to speak in these last moments.  His team was ready for the return drive and he had drawn his travelling hood close about his face.  In his own heart he believed that David would never return.  He would go back to civilization, probably next autumn, and in time he would forget.  As he said, on their last day before reaching the Cochrane, David’s going was like taking a part of his heart away.  He blinked now, as he dropped David’s hand—­blinked and turned his eyes.  And David’s voice had an odd break in it.  He knew what the Missioner was thinking.

“I’ll come back, mon Pere,” he called after him, as Father Roland broke away and went toward Mukoki and the dogs.  “I’ll come back next year!”

Father Roland did not look back until they were started.  Then he turned and waved a mittened hand.  Mukoki heard the sob in his throat.  David tried to call a last word to him, but his voice choked.  He, too, waved a hand.  He had not known that there were friendships like this between men, and as the Missioner trailed steadily away from him, growing smaller and smaller against the dark rim of the distant forest, he felt a sudden fear and a great loneliness—­a fear that, in spite of himself, they would not meet again, and the loneliness that comes to a man when he sees a world widening between himself and the one friend he has on earth.  His one friend.  The man who had saved him from himself, who had pointed out the way for him, who had made him fight.  More than a friend; a father.  He did not stop the broken sound that came to his lips.  A low whine answered it, and he looked down at Baree, huddled in the snow within a yard of his feet.  “My god and master,” Baree’s eyes said, as they looked up at him, “I am here.”  It was as if David had heard the words.  He held out a hand and Baree came to him, his great wolfish body aquiver with joy.  After all, he was not alone.