They were silent awhile, and still the young face gave no sign.

“To many,” the Travelling Priest went on, “the impulse is a blind one or a shy one, shrinking from calling itself by the old names.  But none the less this instinct for the Quest is still the gallant way of youth, confronted by a sense of the homelessness they cannot think will last.”

“That’s it, Father!  That’s it!” the Boy burst out.  “Homelessness!  To feel that is to feel something urging you——­” He stopped, frowning.

“——­urging you to take up your staff,” said the priest.

They were silent a moment, and then the same musical voice tolled out the words like a low bell:  “But with all your journeying, my son, you will come to no Continuing City.”

“It’s no use to say this to me.  You see, I am——­”

“I’ll tell you why I say it.”  The priest laid a hand on his arm.  “I see men going up and down all their lives upon this Quest.  Once in a great while I see one for whom I think the journey may be shortened.”

“How shortened?”

A heavy step on the stair, and the Boy seemed to wake from a dream.

“Good-morning,” said the Colonel, coming in cheerily, rubbing his hands.

“I am very jealous!” He glanced at the Boy’s furs on the floor.  “You have been out, seeing the rest of the mission without me.”

“No—­no, we will show you the rest—­as much as you care for, after breakfast.”

“I’m afraid we oughtn’t to delay—­”

But they did—­“for a few minutes while zey are putting a little fresh meat on your sled,” as Father Brachet said.  They went first to see the dogs fed.  For they got breakfast when they were at home, those pampered mission dogs.

“And now we will show you our store-house, our caches—­”

While Father Brachet looked in the bunch for the key he wanted, a native came by with a pail.  He entered the low building on the left, leaving wide the door.

“What?  No!  Is it really?  No, not really!” The Colonel was more excited than the Boy had ever seen him.  Without the smallest ceremony he left the side of his obliging host, strode to the open door, and disappeared inside.

“What on earth’s the matter?”

“I cannot tell.  It is but our cow-house.”

They followed, and, looking in at the door, the Boy saw a picture that for many a day painted itself on his memory.  For inside the dim, straw-strewn place stood the big Kentuckian, with one arm round the cow, talking to her and rubbing her nose, while down his own a tear trickled.

“Hey?  Well, yes!  Just my view, Sukey.  Yes, old girl, Alaska’s a funny kind o’ place for you and me to be in, isn’t it?  Hey?  Ye-e-yes.”  And he stroked the cow and sniffed back the salt water, and called out, seeing the Boy, “Look!  They’ve got a thoroughbred bull, too, an’ a heifer.  Lord, I haven’t been in any place so like home for a coon’s age!  You go and look at the caches.  I’ll stay here while Sambo milks her.”