“Wake the drunken fool and see him home.”

Watson had some trouble to get Drummond on his feet and after Stormont shut the door there was a heavy thud.  It looked as if Drummond had fallen down the stairs, but Stormont smiled.  He had done with the fellow, and if Watson could get him out of the hotel, it did not matter if he reached home or not.  Ringing for the bell-boy, he gave orders about being called in the morning, as he meant to leave by an early west-bound train.

CHAPTER XII

ON THE TRAIL

Thirlwell had been to the railroad settlement, and returning with Father Lucien, camped on the trail not far from the mine.  The day had been unusually warm and at noon the pines dripped in the sun and the snow got damp.  At dusk it began to freeze and a haze hung about the woods and obscured the moon, but, by contrast with the rigors of winter, Thirlwell sitting by the camp-fire, felt almost uncomfortably warm.  Father Lucien had taken off his furs and sat with a blanket over his shoulders on a bundle of dry twigs.  Both had hung their moccasins up to dry near the heap of snapping branches.  Wreaths of aromatic smoke slowly drifted past and faded in the mist.

“One feels spring coming,” said Father Lucien.  “We have had a foretaste to cheer us while winter lasts.  The sun is moving north, and up here, it always thrills me to watch the light drive back the dark.  One could make a homily on that.”

“The dark soon returns,” Thirlwell remarked, “I hate the long nights.”

“There are men who like the dark, in spite of the terrors it has for some.”

“I wonder whether you are thinking of a particular example,” Thirlwell suggested, remembering a night watch he had kept while the blizzard raged about Driscoll’s shack.

“One does think of examples.  Perhaps we generalize too much.  It is easy to let an individual stand for a type.”

“If the individual is Black Steve Driscoll, I hope he’s an uncommon type.”

Father Lucien made a sign of agreement.  “Driscoll was in my thoughts.  A strange man; dogged and sullen, with a heart that kindness cannot touch.  Yet one feels he is afraid.”

“He was afraid when he was ill; I wonder why.  The fellow has no religious or moral code.  But he drinks hard and perhaps he’s superstitious.”

“What is superstition?” the missionary asked with a smile.  “The old atavistic fear of the dark and the mysterious dangers that threatened our savage ancestors?  Or is it an instinctive knowledge that there are supernatural powers, able to punish and reward?”

“I don’t know,” said Thirlwell, who mused and watched the smoke drift past.

The bush was very quiet; he could hear nothing but the crackle of the fire.  Now and then a blaze leaped up and pierced the shadows among the pine trunks.  A few yards away, the trees got blurred and melted into the encircling gloom.  In one place, however, there was an opening, and when he turned his back to the light, he saw a faint glimmer in the mist that indicated the frozen lake.  Although he was used to the wilds, he felt the silence and desolation.