The Courage of Marge ODoone | Page 9

rugged hands and the curious, chuckling laugh that accompanied it, radiated a sort of cheer. They were expressions of more than satisfaction. "It's a great many miles to my own cabin, but it's home--all home--after I get into the forests. My cabin is at the lower end of God's Lake, three hundred miles by dogs and sledge from Thoreau's--three hundred miles as straight north as a niskuk flies."
"A niskuk?" said David.
"Yes--a gray goose."
"Don't you have crows?"
"A few; but they're as crooked in flight as they are in morals. They're scavengers, and they hang down pretty close to the line of rail--close to civilization, where there's a lot of scavenging to be done, you know."
For the second time that night David found a laugh on his lips.
"Then--you don't like civilization?"
"My heart is in the Northland," replied Father Roland, and David saw a sudden change in the other's face, a dying out of the light in his eyes, a tenseness that came and went like a flash at the corners of his mouth. In that same moment he saw the Missioner's hand tighten, and the fingers knot themselves curiously and then slowly relax.
One of these hands dropped on David's shoulder, and Father Roland became the questioner.
"You have been thinking, since you left me a little while ago?" he asked.
"Yes. I came back. But you were asleep."
"I haven't been asleep. I have been awake every minute. I thought once that I heard a movement at the door but when I looked up there was no one there. You told me to-day that you were going west--to the British Columbia mountains?"
David nodded. Father Roland sat down beside him.
"Of course you didn't tell me why you were going," he went on. "I have made my own guess since you told me about the woman, David. Probably you will never know just why your story has struck so deeply home with me and why it seemed to make you more a son to me than a stranger. I have guessed that in going west you are simply wandering. You are fighting in a vain and foolish sort of way to run away from something. Isn't that it? You are running away--trying to escape the one thing in the whole wide world that you cannot lose by flight--and that's memory. You can think just as hard in Japan or the South Sea Islands as you can on Fifth Avenue in New York, and sometimes the farther away you get the more maddening your thoughts become. It isn't travel you want, David. It's blood--red blood. And for putting blood into you, and courage, and joy of just living and breathing, there's nothing on the face of the earth like--that!"
He reached an arm past David and pointed to the night beyond the car window.
"You mean the storm, and the snow----"
"Yes; storm, and snow, and sunshine, and forests--the tens of thousands of miles of our Northland that you've seen only the edges of. That's what I mean. But, first of all"--and again the Little Missioner rubbed his hands--"first of all, I'm thinking of the supper that's waiting for us at Thoreau's. Will you get off and have supper with me at the Frenchman's, David? After that, if you decide not to go up to God's Lake with me, Thoreau can bring you and your luggage back to the station with his dog team. Such a supper--or breakfast--it will be! I can smell it now, for I know Thoreau--his fish, his birds, the tenderest steaks in the forests! I can hear Thoreau cursing because the train hasn't come, and I'll wager he's got fish and caribou tenderloin and partridges just ready for a final turn in the roaster. What do you say? Will you get off with me?"
"It is a tempting offer to a hungry man, Father."
The Little Missioner chuckled elatedly.
"Hunger!--that's the real medicine of the gods, David, when the belt isn't drawn too tight. If I want to know the nature and quality of a man I ask about his stomach. Did you ever know a man who loved to eat who wasn't of a pretty decent sort? Did you ever know of a man who loved pie--who'd go out of his way to get pie--that didn't have a heart in him bigger than a pumpkin? I guess you didn't. If a man's got a good stomach he isn't a grouch, and he won't stick a knife into your back; but if he eats from habit--or necessity--he isn't a beautiful character in the eyes of nature, and there's pretty sure to be a cog loose somewhere in his makeup. I'm a grub-scientist, David. I warn you of that before we get off at Thoreau's. I love to eat, and the Frenchman knows it. That's why I can smell things in