“Your friend said something—­” She nodded faintly, riverwards, towards the mission sign.  “Did you feel like that about it—­when you saw it first?”

“Oh—­a—­I’m not religious like the Colonel.”

She smiled, and walked on.

At the door, as she took the milk, instead of “Thank you,” “Wait a moment.”

She was back again directly.

“You are going far beyond the mission ... so carry this with you.  I hope it will guide you as it guides us.”

On his way back to the Fathers’ House, he kept looking at what Sister Winifred had given him—­a Latin cross of silver scarce three inches long.  At the intersection of the arms it bore a chased lozenge on which was a mitre; above it, the word “Alaska,” and beneath, the crossed keys of St. Peter and the letters, “P.T.R.”

As he came near to where the Colonel and his hosts were, he slipped the cross into his pocket.  His fingers encountered Muckluck’s medal.  Upon some wholly involuntary impulse, he withdrew Sister Winifred’s gift, and transferred it to another pocket.  But he laughed to himself.  “Both sort o’ charms, after all.”  And again he looked at the big cross and the heaven above it, and down at the domain of the Inua, the jealous god of the Yukon.

Twenty minutes later the two travellers were saying good-bye to the men of Holy Cross, and making their surprised and delighted acknowledgments for the brand-new canvas cover they found upon the Colonel’s new sled.

“Oh, it is not we,” said Father Brachet; “it is made by ze Sisters.  Zey shall know zat you were pleased.”

Father Richmond held the Boy’s hand a moment.

“I see you go, my son, but I shall see you return.”

“No, Father, I shall hardly come this way again.”

Father Brachet, smiling, watched them start up the long trail.

“I sink we shall meet again,” were his last words.

“What does he mean?” asked the Colonel, a little high and mightily.  “What plan has he got for a meeting?”

“Same plan as you’ve got, I s’pose.  I believe you both call it ‘Heaven.’”

The Holy Cross thermometer had registered twenty degrees below zero, but the keen wind blowing down the river made it seem more like forty below.  When they stopped to lunch, they had to crouch down behind the sled to stand the cold, and the Boy found that his face and ears were badly frost-bitten.  The Colonel discovered that the same thing had befallen the toes of his left foot.  They rubbed the afflicted members, and tried not to let their thoughts stray backwards.  The Jesuits had told them of an inhabited cabin twenty-three miles up the river, and they tried to fix their minds on that.  In a desultory way, when the wind allowed it, they spoke of Minook, and of odds and ends they’d heard about the trail.  They spoke of the Big Chimney Cabin, and of how at Anvik they would have their last shave.  The one subject neither seemed anxious to mention was Holy Cross.  It was a little “marked,” the Colonel felt; but he wasn’t going to say the first word, since he meant to say the last.