About the houses there were others engaged in homely chores.  There were men, and women, too, clad heavily in the thick sheepskin clothing which alone could defeat the fierce breath of winter.  Here again was silence and gloom, and even the children refrained from their accustomed pastimes.

A tall, fur-clad figure was moving through the settlement.  His feet were encased in moccasins, and thick felt leggings reached up just below his knees.  For the rest his nether garments were loose fur trousers, and his body was covered by a tunic reaching just below his middle, with a capacious hood attached to it almost completely enveloping his head.

He moved slowly and without any seeming object.  He passed along, and paused when he encountered either man, woman, or child.  With the men he spoke longest.  But the women claimed him, too.  And generally he left behind him a change of expression for the better in those with whom he talked.

He paused beside a small party of elderly men.  They were at work upon a prone tree trunk of vast girth.  They were cutting and splitting it, fresh feed for the fires which must never be permitted to die down.

The men had ceased work on his approach.  But they went on almost immediately, all except one.  He was a grizzled veteran, a man just past middle life.  His face was deeply lined, and a scrub of whisker protected it from the cold.  He had been seated on the log, but he stood up as the tall man addressed him by name.

“You’ll be there, Michael,” he said, brushing the frost from his darkly whiskered face, and breaking the icicles hanging from his fur hood where it almost closed over his mouth.

The man’s grey eyes were smiling as they looked into the wide black eyes so mildly encouraging.

“Sure, Father,” came his prompt reply.  “We got to be ther’ anyway.  That don’t matter.  But we’re for your lead, an’ we’ll stand by it, sure.  There’s going to be no sort of damn fool mistake this time.”

The tall man nodded.

“There must be no mistake this time,” he said keenly.  “Say, how many years is it since I sent you along here with a promise of good work and better wages, and a square deal?”

“Nigh five years, Father.”

“And you got all—­those things?”

“Sure.  More.”

Father Adam nodded.

“And those are the things a man’s entitled to.  Just those,” he said.  “If a man wants more it’s up to him.  He must earn it in competition with the rest of his fellows.  If he can’t earn it he must do without, or quit the honesty that entitles him to hold his head up in the world.  There’s no honesty in the things these men propose.”

“That’s so, Father.”

There was decision in the man’s agreement.  But even as he spoke his gaze wandered in the direction of two small children, like bundles of fur, playing in the snow.

“Poor little kids,” he said.  “Say, it’s hell for them with heat cut off.”