Father Richmond especially, but, indeed, all of them, seemed arrant worldlings beside the youngest of the lay-brethren.  The Colonel could more easily imagine Father Richmond walking the streets of Paris or of Rome, than “hitting the Yukon trail.”  He marvelled afresh at the devotion that brought such a man to wear out his fine attainments, his scholarship, his energy, his wide and Catholic knowledge, in travelling winter after winter, hundreds of miles over the ice from one Indian village to another.  You could not divorce Father Richmond in your mind from the larger world outside; he spoke with its accent, he looked with his humourous, experienced eyes.  You found it natural to think of him in very human relations.  You wondered about his people, and what brought him to this.

Not so with Brother Paul.  He was one of those who suggest no country upon any printed map.  You have to be reminded that you do not know his birthplace or his history.  It was this same Brother Paul who, after breakfast and despite the Pymeut incident, offered to show the gold-seekers over the school.  The big recitation-room was full of natives and decidedly stuffy.  They did not stay long.  Upstairs, “I sleep here in the dormitory,” said the Brother, “and I live with the pupils—­as much as I can.  I often eat with them,” he added as one who mounts a climax.  “They have to be taught everything, and they have to be taught it over again every day.”

“Except music, apparently.”

“Except music—­and games.  Brother Vincent teaches them football and baseball, and plays with them and works with them.  Part of each day is devoted to manual training and to sport.”

He led the way to the workshop.

“One of our brothers is a carpenter and master mechanic.”

He called to a pupil passing the door, and told him the strangers would like to inspect the school work.  Very proudly the lad obeyed.  He himself was a carpenter, and showed his half-finished table.  The Boy’s eye fell on a sled.

“Yes,” said the lad, “that kind better.  Your kind no good.”  He had evidently made intimate acquaintance with the Boy’s masterpiece.

“Yours is splendid,” admitted the unskilled workman.

“Will you sell it?” the Colonel asked Brother Paul.

“They make them to sell,” was the answer, and the transaction was soon effected.

* * * * *

“It has stopped snowing and ze wind is fallen,” said Father Brachet, going to the reception-room window an hour or so after they had come in from dinner.

The Colonel exchanged looks with the Boy, and drew out his watch.

“Later than I thought.”

“Much,” the Colonel agreed, and sat considering, watch in hand.

“I sink our friends must see now ze girls’ school, and ze laundry, hein?”

“To be sure,” agreed Father Richmond.  “I will take you over and give you into the hands of our Mother Superior.”