"Nobody can find her."
"She's dead—"
"She's not dead!"
The Boy involuntarily shrank back; the Colonel looked ready to smash him. The action recalled the older man to himself.
"I feel sure she isn't dead," he said more quietly, but still trembling. "No, no; she isn't dead. She had some money of her own, and she went abroad. I followed her. I heard of her in Paris, in Rome. I saw her once in a droschky in Vienna; there I lost the trail. Her people said she'd gone to Japan. I went to Japan. I'm sure she wasn't in the islands. I've spent my life since trying to find her—writing her letters that always come back—trying—" His voice went out like a candle-wick suddenly dying in the socket. Only the sleeper was audible for full five minutes. Then, as though he had paused only a comma's space, the Colonel went on: "I've been trying to put the memory of her behind me, as a sane man should. But some women leave an arrow sticking in your flesh that you can never pull out. You can only jar against it, and cringe under the agony of the reminder all your life long.... Bah! Go out, Boy, and bring in your sled."
And the Boy obeyed without a word.
Two days after, three men with a child stood in front of the larger cabin, saying good-bye to their two comrades who were starting out on snow-shoes to do a little matter of 625 miles of Arctic travelling, with two weeks' scant provisioning, some tea and things for trading, bedding, two rifles, and a kettle, all packed on one little hand-sled.
There had been some unexpected feeling, and even some real generosity shown at the last, on the part of the three who were to profit by the exodus—falling heir thereby to a bigger, warmer cabin and more food.
O'Flynn was moved to make several touching remonstrances. It was a sign of unwonted emotion on Mac's part that he gave up arguing (sacrificing all the delight of a set debate), and simply begged and prayed them not to be fools, not to fly in the face of Providence.
But Potts was made of sterner stuff. Besides, the thing was too good to be true. O'Flynn, when he found they were not to be dissuaded, solemnly presented each with a little bottle of whisky. Nobody would have believed O'Flynn would go so far as that. Nor could anyone have anticipated that close-fisted Mac would give the Boy his valuable aneroid barometer and compass, or that Potts would be so generous with his best Virginia straight-cut, filling the Colonel's big pouch without so much as a word.