In some such way Jan reflected what time the C.N.R. train by which he traveled rumbled swiftly along its course for Edmonton; and Dick Vaughan, away back in Buck’s Crossing, wondered what might be delaying the wagoner from Lambert’s Siding; the wagoner he was not to see before the middle of the next day, and then only to learn that the man knew nothing of Jan’s whereabouts.

When Jan left that train in the big crowded depot at Edmonton next day, winter had descended upon the greater part of North America.  The change was the more marked for Jan by reason that snow had come to Edmonton a full day earlier than it came to Lambert’s Siding.  Jan had seen snow before on the Sussex Downs; but that had been a kind of snow quite different from this.  That snow had been soft and clammy.  This was crisp and dry as salt.  Also the air was colder than any air Jan had ever known, though mild enough for northern winter air, seeing that the thermometer registered only some five and twenty degrees of frost.  And the sun shone brightly.  There was no wind.  It was an air rich in kindling, stimulating properties; an air that made life, movement, and activity desirable for all, and optimistic determination easy and natural for most folk.

“By gar!” said Jean to his friend Jake, as together they led Jan from the train.  “You mark me now what I say, thees Jan he’s got all them huskies beat beefore he start.  Eh?  Hee’s great dog, thees Jan.”

Jake nodded, and the three of them strode on through the dry powdery snow.  One knew by their walk that these men had covered great distances on their feet.  Their knees swung easily to every stride, with a hint of the dip that comes from long use of snow-shoes.  For a little while Jan hardly thought of Dick Vaughan, so busy was he in absorbing new impressions.  But when the walk had lasted almost an hour, he began again to wonder about Dick, and his deep-pouched eyes took on once more the set look of waiting watchfulness which meant that he was hoping at any moment to sight his man.

And then they came to a small wooden house with a large barn and a sod-walled stable beside it.  Jan’s chain was hitched round a stout center post in the barn, and there he was left.  Later Jean brought him a tin dish of water and a big lump of dried fish which had had some warm fat smeared over it, Jean having rightly guessed that it was Jan’s first experience of this form of dog-food.  The fat was well enough, and Jan licked it rather languidly.  But the fish did not appeal to him, and so he left it and went off to sleep, little thinking that he would get no other kind of food than this for many days to come.

Toward the middle of the next day, Jan, feeling cramped and rather miserable as the result of his unaccustomed confinement, changed his mind about that fish and ate it; slowly, and without enjoyment, but yet with some benefit to himself.  Less than an hour later Jean entered to him, carrying in his hands a contrivance of leather, with long trailing ends.