"Yes—a gray goose."
"Don't you have crows?"
"A few; but they're as crooked in flight as they are in morals. They're scavengers, and they hang down pretty close to the line of rail—close to civilization, where there's a lot of scavenging to be done, you know."
For the second time that night David found a laugh on his lips.
"Then—you don't like civilization?"
"My heart is in the Northland," replied Father Roland, and David saw a sudden change in the other's face, a dying out of the light in his eyes, a tenseness that came and went like a flash at the corners of his mouth. In that same moment he saw the Missioner's hand tighten, and the fingers knot themselves curiously and then slowly relax.
One of these hands dropped on David's shoulder, and Father Roland became the questioner.
"You have been thinking, since you left me a little while ago?" he asked.
"Yes. I came back. But you were asleep."
"I haven't been asleep. I have been awake every minute. I thought once that I heard a movement at the door but when I looked up there was no one there. You told me to-day that you were going west—to the British Columbia mountains?"