“She’s calling for you, boy,” said Pierre understandingly.

He coughed, and clutched a hand to his breast, where the pain seemed rending him.

“Frost-bitten lung,” he said, speaking straight at Kazan.  “Got it early in the winter, up at Fond du Lac.  Hope we’ll get home—­in time—­with the kids.”

In the loneliness and emptiness of the big northern wilderness one falls into the habit of talking to one’s self.  But Kazan’s head was alert, and his eyes watchful, so Pierre spoke to him.

“We’ve got to get them home, and there’s only you and me to do it,” he said, twisting his beard.  Suddenly he clenched his fists.

His hollow racking cough convulsed him again.

“Home!” he panted, clutching his chest.  “It’s eighty miles straight north—­to the Churchill—­and I pray to God we’ll get there—­with the kids—­before my lungs give out.”

He rose to his feet, and staggered a little as he walked.  There was a collar about Kazan’s neck, and he chained him to the sledge.  After that he dragged three or four small logs upon the fire, and went quietly into the tent where Joan and the baby were already asleep.  Several times that night Kazan heard the distant voice of Gray Wolf calling for him, but something told him that he must not answer it now.  Toward dawn Gray Wolf came close in to the camp, and for the first time Kazan replied to her.

His howl awakened the man.  He came out of the tent, peered for a few moments up at the sky, built up the fire, and began to prepare breakfast.  He patted Kazan on the head, and gave him a chunk of meat.  Joan came out a few moments later, leaving the baby asleep in the tent.  She ran up and kissed Pierre, and then dropped down on her knees beside Kazan, and talked to him almost as he had heard her talk to the baby.  When she jumped up to help her father, Kazan followed her, and when Joan saw him standing firmly upon his legs she gave a cry of pleasure.

It was a strange journey that began into the North that day.  Pierre Radisson emptied the sledge of everything but the tent, blankets, food and the furry nest for baby Joan.  Then he harnessed himself in the traces and dragged the sledge over the snow.  He coughed incessantly.

“It’s a cough I’ve had half the winter,” lied Pierre, careful that Joan saw no sign of blood on his lips or beard.  “I’ll keep in the cabin for a week when we get home.”

Even Kazan, with that strange beast knowledge which man, unable to explain, calls instinct, knew that what he said was not the truth.  Perhaps it was largely because he had heard other men cough like this, and that for generations his sledge-dog ancestors had heard men cough as Radisson coughed—­and had learned what followed it.