The dog woofed again; then, as if he had understood everything that had been said, dropped to a place at her side.
“So now we are four,” Johnny thought to himself as, rising from his place he took up the axe and went out into the night to gather a fresh supply of fuel.
When he returned Gordon Duncan was still fast asleep. Sitting quite close to the girl, the Corporal was talking in low tones. As Johnny took his place he caught the word cabin. A little later a boat was spoken of, then timber and a broad tundra.
Taking the stub of a pencil and a sheet of paper from his pocket, the officer drew what was likely to be a rough map.
Johnny understood in a general way what was happening. The Corporal realized that he had, without intending to do so, stirred up in Gordon Duncan’s breast a fire not easily quenched. He had so worked upon his almost exaggerated sense of duty that he would be driven to attempt the seemingly impossible. Without adding fuel to the flames by giving the old man a detailed description of the route to be taken, he was imparting that knowledge to Faye Duncan.
“Well thought out and mighty decent of him,” was Johnny’s mental comment. With that thought uppermost in his mind, he went about the business of preparing for a night’s repose.
CHAPTER VII
A LOOK BEYOND
The Corporal was up and away before dawn. Having assisted him with his dogs, Johnny returned to the cabin.
In his sleeping bag on a rude bunk in the corner Gordon Duncan still slept. Before the fire sat Faye Duncan. She had thrown fresh fuel on the fire. The flames were leaping up the chimney.
“I suppose you know,” she said as he took a seat beside her, “that Grandfather will accept this new mission.”