“Is the news good?” interrupted the chief. For a moment the corporal did not reply. Was the news he had to send Joy Gargrave good? In one way, yes! It would suffice to remove any lingering doubt as to the effect of the shot that she had fired when she had gone to meet Dick Bracknell in the wood. He would be able to assure her, on the evidence of Dick himself, that she was not responsible for the mischief that had been done. That assurance, as he knew, would mean the lifting of a weight of apprehension from Joy’s heart. In another way, however, the news was bad. Dick Bracknell was still alive, and that meant that she was still bound to him, and that on the first favourable opportunity he might assert himself. His mind was still balancing the good and evil of the case, when Louis, who had been watching his face, spoke again.
“There is no need to speak. Ze news it is not good! Therefore there is not any cause for haste. Ill news does not grow worse for keeping, and the trail it is bad these days, for there is mooch snow.”
“Nevertheless, I shall make the endeavour, Louis! I will borrow a man and a dog team and meat from you, and in one week I will take the trail. If I find it too much for me, I can return.”
The chief nodded. “As you please. Ze dogs are yours, also ze meat an ze mans, though ze hunters are from ze camp just now. But if you mus’ go, you mus’. It is le diable in ze race that drives you forth, corp’ral.”
“The devil in the race?” laughed Bracknell. “I do not understand, Louis. What do you mean?”
“I mean ze unrest that dwells in ze men of your tribe. It drives them forth, for good or ill, to ze conquest of ze lands. It makes them seek ze stick which runs through ze earth——”
“The pole, you mean, Louis.”
“Ze pole, yes! And when got, what good? It makes them dat they cannot sit by ze fires in warm tepees, but must go hunt ze bald-faced bear, or dig ze frozen earth for gold dat somewhere white squaw may fling it from ze window.”
“Yes!” laughed the corporal. “You put the truth—rather brutally. We are rather given that way. But it isn’t the devil, Louis, it is the genius and instinct of our race for conquest that drives us—that and the dream of the home-woman, I suppose.”