Her voice broke.  She covered her face, and for a moment, too stunned to speak, Philip looked at her while her slender form trembled with sobs.  She had bowed her head, and for the first time he reached out and laid his hand upon the soft glory of her hair.  Its touch set aflame every fiber in him.  Hope swept through him, crushing his fears like a juggernaut.  It would be a simple task to go to Peter God!  He was tempted to take her in his arms.  A moment more, and he would have caught her to him, but the weight of his hand on her head roused her, and she raised her face, and drew back.  His arms were reaching out.  She saw what was in his eyes.

“Not now,” she said.  “Not until you have gone to him.  Nothing in the world will be too great a reward for you if you are fair with me, for you are taking a chance.  In the end you may receive nothing.  For if Peter God says that I cannot be your wife, I cannot.  He must be the arbiter.  On those conditions, will you go?”

“Yes, I will go,” said Philip.

It was early in August when Philip reached Edmonton.  From there he took the new line of rail to Athabasca Landing; it was September when he arrived at Fort McMurray and found Pierre Gravois, a half-breed, who was to accompany him by canoe up to Fort MacPherson.  Before leaving this final outpost, whence the real journey into the North began, Philip sent a long letter to Josephine.

Two days after he and Pierre had started down the Mackenzie, a letter came to Fort McMurray for Philip.  “Long” La Brie, a special messenger, brought it from Athabasca Landing.  He was too late, and he had no instructions—­and had not been paid—­to go farther.

Day after day Philip continued steadily northward.  He carried Josephine’s letter to Peter God in his breast pocket, securely tied in a little waterproof bag.  It was a thick letter, and time and again he held it in his hand, and wondered why it was that Josephine could have so much to say to the lonely fox-hunter up on the edge of the Barren.

One night, as he sat alone by their fire in the chill of September darkness, he took the letter from its sack and saw that the contents of the bulging envelope had sprung one end of the flap loose.  Before he went to bed Pierre had set a pail of water on the coals.  A cloud of steam was rising from it.  Those two things—­the steam and the loosened flap—­sent a thrill through Philip.  What was in the letter?  What had Josephine McCloud written to Peter God?

He looked toward sleeping Pierre; the pail of water began to bubble and sing—­he drew a tense breath, and rose to his feet.  In thirty seconds the steam rising from the pail would free the rest of the flap.  He could read the letter, and reseal it.

And then, like a shock, came the thought of the few notes Josephine had written to him.  On each of them she had never failed to stamp her seal in a lavender-colored wax.  He had observed that Colonel McCloud always used a seal, in bright red.  On this letter to Peter God there was no seal!  She trusted him.  Her faith was implicit.  And this was her proof of it.  Under his breath he laughed, and his heart grew warm with new happiness and hope.  “I have faith in you,” she had said, at parting; and now, again, out of the letter her voice seemed to whisper to him, “I have faith in you.”