David followed a little later, all his belongings in one of the leather bags. For some time he had hesitated over the portrait of the Girl; twice he had shut the lock on it; the third time he placed it in the big, breast pocket inside the coat Father Roland had provided for him, making a mental apology for that act by assuring himself that sooner or later he would show the picture to the Missioner, so would want it near at hand. Father Roland had disposed of the gloves, and introduced David to the rest of his equipment when he came from the cabin. It was very business-like, this accoutrement that was to be the final physical touch to his transition; it did not allow of skepticism; about it there was also a quiet and cold touch of romance. The rifle chilled David's bare fingers when he touched it. It was short-barrelled, but heavy in the breech, with an appearance of indubitable efficiency about it. It looked like an honest weapon to David, who was unaccustomed to firearms—and this was more than he could say for the heavy, 38-calibre automatic pistol which Father Roland thrust into his hand, and which looked and felt murderously mysterious. He frankly confessed his ignorance of these things, and the Missioner chuckled good-humouredly as he buckled the belt and holster about his waist and told him on which hip to keep the pistol, and where to carry the leather sheath that held a long and keen-edged hunting knife. Then he turned to the snow shoes. They were the long, narrow, bush-country shoe. He placed them side by side on the snow and showed David how to fasten his moccasined feet in them without using his hands. For three quarters of an hour after that, out in the soft, deep snow in the edge of the spruce, he gave him his first lesson in that slow, swinging, out-stepping stride of the north-man on the trail. At first it was embarrassing for David, with Thoreau and the Indians grinning openly, and Marie's face peering cautiously and joyously from the cabin door. Three times he entangled his feet hopelessly and floundered like a great fish in the snow; then he caught the "swing" of it and at the end of half an hour began to find a pleasurable exhilaration, even excitement, in his ability to skim over the feathery surface of this great white sea without so much as sinking to his ankle bones. When he slipped the shoes off and stood them up beside his rifle against the cabin, he was panting. His heart was pounding. His lungs drank in the cold, balsam-scented air like a suction pump and expelled each breath with the sibilancy of steam escaping from a valve.
"Winded!" he gasped. And then, gulping for breath as he looked at Father Roland, he demanded: "How the devil am I going to keep up with you fellows on the trail? I'll go bust inside of a mile!"
"And every time you go bust we'll load you on the sledge," comforted the Missioner, his round face glowing with enthusiastic approval. "You've done finely, David. Within a fortnight you'll be travelling twenty miles a day on snow shoes."
He suddenly seemed to think of something that he had forgotten and fidgeted with his mittens in his hesitation, as if there lay an unpleasant duty ahead of him. Then he said:
"If there are any letters to write, David ... any business matters...."
"There are no letters," cut in David quickly. "I attended to my affairs some weeks ago. I am ready."
With a frozen whitefish he returned to Baree. The dog scented him before the crunch of his footsteps could be heard in the snow, and when he came out from the thick spruce and balsam into the little open, Baree was stretched out flat on his belly, his gaunt gray muzzle resting on the snow between his forepaws. He made no movement as David drew near, except that curious shivers ran through his body, and his throat twitched. Thoreau would have analyzed that impassive posture as one of waiting and watchful treachery; David saw in it a strange yearning, a deep fear, a hope. Baree, outlawed by man, battered and bleeding as he lay there, felt for perhaps the first time in his life the thrilling presence of a friend—a man friend. David approached boldly, and stood over him. He had forgotten the Frenchman's warning. He was not afraid. He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched Baree's neck. A tremor shot through the dog that was like an electric shock; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke down, and ended in a low whine. He lay as if dead under the weight of David's hand. Not until David had ceased talking to him, and had disappeared once more in the direction of the cabin, did Baree begin devouring the frozen whitefish.
Father Roland meditated in some perplexity when it came to the final question of Baree.
"We can't put him in with the team," he protested. "All my dogs would be dead before we reached God's Lake."
David had been thinking of that.