David tried not to reveal his restlessness as they waited.  At each new sound he hoped that what he heard was Tavish’s footsteps.  He had quite decidedly planned his action.  Tavish would enter, and of course there would be greetings, and possibly half an hour or more of smoking and talk before he brought up the Firepan Creek country, unless, as might fortuitously happen, Father Roland spoke of it ahead of him.  After that he would show Tavish the picture, and he would stand well in the light so that it would be impressed upon Tavish all at once.  He noticed that the chimney of the lamp was sooty and discoloured, and somewhat to the Missioner’s amusement he took it off and cleaned it.  The light was much more satisfactory then.  He wandered about the cabin, scrutinizing, as if out of curiosity, Tavish’s belongings.  There was not much to discover.  Close to the bunk there was a small battered chest with riveted steel ribs.  He wondered whether it was unlocked, and what it contained.  As he stood over it he could hear plainly the thud, thud, thud, of the thing outside—­the haunch of meat—­as though some one were tapping fragments of the Morse code in a careless and broken sort of way.  Then, without any particular motive, he stepped into the dark corner at the end of the bunk.  An agonized squeak came from under his foot, and he felt something small and soft flatten out, like a wad of dough.  He jumped back.  An exclamation broke from his lips.  It was unpleasant, though the soft thing was nothing more than a mouse.

“Confound it!” he said.

Father Roland was listening to the slow, pendulum-like thud, thud, thud, against the logs of the cabin.  It seemed to come more distinctly as David crushed out the life of the mouse, as if pounding a protest upon the wall.

“Tavish has hung his meat low,” he said concernedly.  “Quite careless of him, unless it is a very large quarter.”

He began slowly to undress.

“We might as well turn in,” he suggested.  “When Tavish shows up the dogs will raise bedlam and wake us.  Throw out Tavish’s blankets and put your own in his bunk.  I prefer the floor.  Always did.  Nothing like a good, smooth floor....”

He was interrupted by the opening of the cabin door.  The Cree thrust in his head and shoulders.  He came no farther.  His eyes were afire with the smouldering gleam of garnets.  He spoke rapidly in his native tongue to the Missioner, gesturing with one lean, brown hand as he talked.  Father Roland’s face became heavy, furrowed, perplexed.  He broke in suddenly, in Cree, and when he ceased speaking Mukoki withdrew slowly.  The last David saw of the Indian was his shifting, garnet-like eyes, disappearing like beads of blackish flame.

“Pest!” cried the Little Missioner, shrugging his shoulders in disgust.  “The dogs are uneasy.  Mukoki says they smell death.  They sit on their haunches, he says, staring—­staring at nothing, and whining like puppies.  He is going back with them to the other side of the ridge.  If it will ease his soul, let him go.”