Alone in the living-room, the last words Chloe had spoken to her flashed through the Indian girl's mind: "I can trust you to place this in MacNair's hands."
Without a second thought for Miss Penny, she rushed into her room, recovered the letter from its hiding-place beneath the pillow, thrust it into the bosom of her gown, and hastily prepared for the trail.
In the kitchen she made up a light pack of provisions, and, with no other thought than to find MacNair, opened the door and stepped out into the keen, frosty air. The girl knew only that Snare Lake lay somewhere up the river, but this gave her little concern, as no snow had fallen since MacNair had departed with his Indians a week before, and she knew his trail would be plain.
From her window Harriet Penny watched the departure of the girl, and before she was half-way across the clearing the little woman appeared in the doorway, commanding, begging, pleading in shrill falsetto, not to be left alone. Hearing the cries, the girl quickened her pace, and without so much as a backward glance passed swiftly down the steep slope to the river.
Born to the snow-trail, the Louchoux girl made good time. During the month she had spent at Chloe's school she had for the first time in her life been sufficiently clothed and fed, and now with the young muscles of her body well nourished and in the pink of condition she fairly flew over the trail.
Hour after hour she kept up the pace without halting. She passed the mouth of the small tributary upon which she had first seen Chloe. The place conjured vivid memories of the white woman and all she had done for her and meant to her—memories that served as a continual spur to her flying feet. It was well toward noon when, upon rounding a sharp bend, she came suddenly face to face with the Indians and the dog-teams that MacNair had despatched for provisions.
She bounded among them like a flash, singled out Wee Johnnie Tamarack, and proceeded to deluge the old man with an avalanche of words. When finally she paused for sheer lack of breath, the old Indian, who had understood but the smallest fragment of what she had said, remained obviously unimpressed. Whereupon the girl produced the letter, which she waved before his face, accompanying the act with another tirade of words of which the Indian understood less than he had of the previous outburst.
Wee Johnnie Tamarack took his orders only from MacNair. MacNair had said, "Go to the school for provisions," and to the school he must go. Nevertheless, the sight of the letter impressed him. For in the Northland His Majesty's mail is held sacred and must be carried to its destination, though the heavens fall.
To the mind of Wee Johnnie Tamarack a letter was "mail," and the fact that its status might be altered by the absence of His Majesty's stamp upon its corner was an affair beyond the old man's comprehension.
Therefore he ordered the other Indians to continue their journey, and, motioning the girl to a place on the sled, headed his dogs northward and sent them skimming over the back-trail.