“A wolf!” said Father Roland, his face a gray shadow as he nodded at David.  “Listen!”

From behind them came another cry.  It was Baree.

They went on, circling around the edge of a great windfall.  A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above.  Again and again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he heard the wolf-howl; once again Baree’s dismal, homeless cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom of the forest into the twilight gray of a clearing.  Twenty paces from them was a cabin.  The dogs stopped.  Father Roland fumbled at his big silver watch, and held it close up to his eyes.

“Half-past four,” he said.  “Fairly good time for a beginner, David!”

He broke into a cheerful whistle.  The dogs were whining and snapping like joyous puppies as Mukoki unfastened them.  The Cree himself was voluble in a chuckling and meaningless way.  There was a great contentment in the air, an indefinable inspiration that seemed to lift the gloom.  David could not understand it, though in an elusive sort of way he felt it.  He did not understand until Father Roland said, across the sledge, which he had begun to unpack: 

“Seems good to be on the trail again, David.”

That was it—­the trail!  This was the end of a day’s achievement.  He looked at the cabin, dark and unlighted in the open, with its big white cap of snow.  It looked friendly for all its darkness.  He was filled with the desire to become a partner in the activities of Mukoki and the Missioner.  He wanted to help, not because he placed any value on his assistance, but simply because his blood and his brain were imposing new desires upon him.  He kicked off his snow shoes, and went with Mukoki to the door of the cabin, which was fastened with a wooden bolt.  When they entered he could make out things indistinctly—­a stove at first, a stool, a box, a small table, and a bunk against the wall.  Mukoki was rattling the lids of the stove when Father Roland entered with his arms filled.  He dropped his load on the floor, and David went back to the sledge with him.  By the time they had brought its burden into the cabin a fire was roaring in the stove, and Mukoki had hung a lighted lantern over the table.  Then Father Roland seized an axe, tested its keen edge with his thumb, and said to David:  “Let’s go cut our beds before it’s too dark.”  Cut their beds!  But the Missioner’s broad back was disappearing through the door in a very purposeful way, and David caught up a second axe and followed.  Young balsams twice as tall as a man were growing about the cabin, and from these Father Roland began stripping the branches.  They carried armfuls into the cabin until the one bunk was heaped high, and meanwhile Mukoki had half a dozen pots and kettles and pans on the glowing top of the sheet-iron stove, and thick caribou steaks were sizzling in a homelike and comforting way.  A little later David ate as though he had gone hungry all day.  Ordinarily he wanted his meat well done; to-night he devoured an inch-and-a quarter sirloin steak that floated in its own gravy, and was red to the heart of it.  When they had finished they lighted their pipes and went out to feed the dogs a frozen fish apiece.