“Because you follow the Star of Dreams.”
While the assembled men stared blankly at this, Crawford met the glittering eyes of Frontin, and in that gaze read an almost superstitious conviction. Somehow, he perceived, the Frenchman had been captivated by his words regarding the emerald star; and smiling at the absurdity of it, he rose and left the assemblage to draw lots for places in the expedition. After all, why not? Perhaps this star, which hung on its thong inside his shirt, and which was a good symbol of his rather vague strivings and longings after a freedom that did not exist, had been sent to him as an omen. His half-jesting utterance had become verity.
“At least,” he thought as he looked up at the blazing stars above the black cliffs, “it is possible. Frontin is a man who reverences religion, and he believes it. I do not reverence religion, but I reverence God—and I think I believe it also. Well, we shall see! I accept the omen.”
Frowning thoughtfully, he sought his narrow berth.
Morning beheld a laughing, cursing, straggling expedition of nine men starting off along the wooded crest of the cliffs. Crawford led the way, a fusil slung over his back and one horn with a few charges of good powder at his belt; behind him followed seven men, with Bose bringing up the rear. As was their custom in all things, the buccaneers donned the snowshoes and set forth to sink or swim; and for a while it was a sinking job. They stumbled, tripped, sprawled in the snow and, like the huge children they were, enjoyed the game. The intense cold was invigorating to them; they had food for two days, their leader had enough powder to shoot any game they met, and ahead was the prospect of loot against heavy odds. From the buccaneer viewpoint the situation was ideal—death at their backs, desperation prodding them forward, all to win and nothing to lose. So the winter-stilled woods echoed back lusty shouts of laughter and wild curses and wilder jests, until Crawford issued an order against too much noise.
The advance was not at all rapid. To most of the men these crusted drifts of snow were entirely novel—a thing to be enjoyed as well as fought. By noon, Crawford calculated that no more than a league had been covered, and he called a halt, the men promptly starting a furious snow-fight, hurling cakes of icy consistency.
Crawford beckoned Bose apart and took out his pipe. It was that same white stone pipe girded with silver, which had rested on Saint-Castin’s mantel; Vanderberg had looted it, and Crawford won it from him over the dice on the way north.
“Give them a bite to eat and a rest, Bose. By night they’ll all be done up with mal de racquette. I’m going ahead to scout, so follow my trail. Give the men a tale of Indians; whether true or not, it will lend them caution and may keep the rogues quiet.”
Bose assented and ducked a cake of frozen snow that came hurtling for him. Crawford, turning to the south, was gone among the trees.
“A mad situation!” he thought, as he broke trail. “But like all mad things, it has a grain of sense. If one could only prevent the grain from being overborne by the mass!”