“Say, mister, you’ve never played solitaire, have you?” he asked.

“Never,” confessed David.

Without another word the baggage-man hunched himself over his table, dealt himself another hand, and not until the train began slowing up for Thoreau’s place did he rise from his seat or cease his low mutterings and grumblings.  In response to the engineer’s whistle he jumped to his feet and rolled back the car door.

“Now step lively!” he demanded.  “We’ve got no orders to stop here and we’ll have to dump this stuff out on the move!”

As he spoke he gave the hundred and ten pounds of beans a heave out into the night.  Father Roland jumped to his assistance, and David saw his steamer trunk and his hand-bags follow the beans.

“The snow is soft and deep, an’ there won’t be any harm done,” Father Roland assured him as he tossed out a 50-pound box of prunes.

David heard sounds now:  a man’s shout, a fiendish tonguing of dogs, and above that a steady chorus of yapping which he guessed came from the foxes.  Suddenly a lantern gleamed, then a second and a third, and a dark, bearded face—­a fierce and piratical-looking face—­began running along outside the door.  The last box and the last bag went off, and with a sudden movement the train-man hauled David to the door.

“Jump!” he cried.

The face and the lantern had fallen behind, and it was as black as an abyss outside.  With a mute prayer David launched himself much as he had seen the bags and boxes sent out.  He fell with a thud in a soft blanket of snow.  He looked up in time to see the Little Missioner flying out like a curious gargoyle through the door; the baggage-man’s lantern waved, the engineer’s whistle gave a responding screech, and the train whirred past.  Not until the tail-light of the last coach was receding like a great red firefly in the gloom did David get up.  Father Roland was on his feet, and down the track came two of the three lanterns on the run.

It was all unusually weird and strangely interesting to David.  He was breathing deeply.  There was a warmth in his body which was new to him.  It struck him all at once, as he heard Father Roland crunching through the snow, that he was experiencing an entirely new phase of life—­a life he had read about at times and dreamed of at other times, but which he had never come physically in contact with.  The yapping of the foxes, the crying of the dogs, those lanterns hurrying down the track, the blackness of the night, and the strong perfume of balsam in the cold air—­an odour that he breathed deep into his lungs like the fumes of an exhilarating drink—­quickened sharply a pulse that a few hours before he thought was almost lifeless.  He had no time to ask himself whether he was enjoying these new sensations; he felt only the thrill of them as Thoreau and the Indian came up out of the night with their lanterns.  In Thoreau himself, as he stood a moment later in the glow of the lanterns,