"Well, that bed at Holy Cross isn't any whiter than this," laughed the Boy.
But the Colonel was not to be deceived by this light and airy reference. His own unwilling sentiments were a guide to the Boy's, and he felt it incumbent upon him to restore the Holy Cross incident to its proper proportions. Those last words of Father Brachet's bothered him. Had they been "gettin' at" the Boy?
"You think all that mission business mighty wonderful—just because you run across it in Alaska."
"And isn't it wonderful at all?"
The Boy spoke dreamily, and, from force of old habit, held out his mittened hands to the unavailing fire.
The Colonel gave a prefatory grunt of depreciation, but he was pulling his blankets out from under the stuff on the sled.
The Boy turned his head, and watched him with a little smile. "I'll admit that I always used to think the Jesuits were a shady lot—"
"So they are—most of 'em."
"Well, I don't know about 'most of 'em.' You and Mac used to talk a lot about the 'motives' of the few I do know. But as far as I can see, every creature who comes up to this country comes to take something out of it—except those Holy Cross fellas. They came to bring something."
The Colonel had got the blankets out now, but where was the rubber sheet? He wouldn't sleep on it in this weather, again, for a kingdom, but when the thaws came, if those explorer fellas were right—