"No you are not," returned the priest smiling. "You must get a parki with a hood."
"I've got an Arctic cap; it rolls down over my ears and goes all round my neck—just leaves a little place in front for my eyes."
"Yes; wear that if you go on the trail; but the good of the parki hood is, that it is trimmed all round with long wolf-hair. You see"—he picked his parki up off the floor and showed it to the company—"those long hairs standing out all round the face break the force of the wind. It is wonderful how the Esquimaux hood lessens the chance of frost-bite."
While the only object in the room that he didn't seem to see was Mac, he was most taken up with the fireplace.
The Colonel laid great stress on the enormous services of the delightful, accomplished master-mason over there on the beanbags, who sat looking more than ever like a monkey-wrench incarnate.
But whether that Jesuit was as wily as the Calvinist thought, he had quite wit enough to overlook the great chimney-builder's wrathful silence.
He was not the least "professional," talked about the country and how to live here, saying incidentally that he had spent twelve years at the mission of the Holy Cross. The Yukon wasn't a bad place to live in, he told them, if men only took the trouble to learn how to live here. While teaching the Indians, there was a great deal to learn from them as well.
"You must all come and see our schools," he wound up.
"We'd like to awfully," said the Boy, and all but Mac echoed him. "We were so afraid," he went on, "that we mightn't see anybody all winter long."
"Oh, you'll have more visitors than you want."