twitched.  Thoreau would have analyzed that impassive posture as one of waiting and watchful treachery; David saw in it a strange yearning, a deep fear, a hope.  Baree, outlawed by man, battered and bleeding as he lay there, felt for perhaps the first time in his life the thrilling presence of a friend—­a man friend.  David approached boldly, and stood over him.  He had forgotten the Frenchman’s warning.  He was not afraid.  He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched Baree’s neck.  A tremor shot through the dog that was like an electric shock; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke down, and ended in a low whine.  He lay as if dead under the weight of David’s hand.  Not until David had ceased talking to him, and had disappeared once more in the direction of the cabin, did Baree begin devouring the frozen whitefish.

Father Roland meditated in some perplexity when it came to the final question of Baree.

“We can’t put him in with the team,” he protested.  “All my dogs would be dead before we reached God’s Lake.”

David had been thinking of that.

“He will follow me,” he said confidently.  “We’ll simply turn him loose when we’re ready to start.”

The Missioner nodded indulgently.  Thoreau, who had overheard, shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.  He hated Baree, the beast that would not yield to a club, and he muttered gruffly: 

“And to-night he will join the wolves, m’sieu, and prey like the very devil on my traps.  There will be only one cure for that—­a fox-bait!—­poison!”

And the last hour seemed to prove that what Thoreau had said was true.  After dinner the three of them went to Baree, and David unfastened the chain from the big husky’s collar.  For a few moments the dog did not seem to sense his freedom; then, like a shot—­so unexpectedly that he almost took David off his feet—­he leaped over the birch log and disappeared in the forest.  The Frenchman was amused.

“The wolves,” he reminded softly.  “He will be with them to-night, m’sieu—­that outlaw!”

Not until the crack of Mukoki’s long, caribou-gut whip had set the Missioner’s eight dogs tense and alert in their traces did Father Roland return for a moment into the cabin to give Marie the locket.  He came back quickly, and at a signal from him Mukoki wound up the 9-foot lash of his whip and set out ahead of the dogs.  They followed him slowly and steadily, keeping the broad runners of the sledge in the trail he made.  The Missioner dropped in immediately behind the sledge, and David behind him.  Thoreau spoke a last word to David, in a voice intended for his ears alone.

“It is a long way to God’s Lake, m’sieu, and you are going with a strange man—­a strange man.  Some day, if you have not forgotten Pierre Thoreau, you may tell me what it has been a long time in my heart to know.  The saints be with you, m’sieu!”