If so, you will
find him between Fond du Lac and the Beaver River, and you can make it
in four days by driving your dogs close to the scrub-edge of the
barrens, keeping always where you can see the musk-ox to the north."
He turned to the door, and hesitated there for a moment, smiling and
shrugging his shoulders. "Jean de Gravois wonders if Jan Thoreau
understands?" he said, and passed out.
When Cummins returned, he found Jan's cheeks flushed and the boy in a
fever.
"Devil take that Gravois!" he growled.
"He has been a brother to me," said Jan simply. "I love him."
On the second day after the Frenchman's departure, Jan rose free of
the fever which had threatened him for a time, and in the afternoon he
harnessed Cummins' dogs. The last of the trappers had started from the
post that morning, their sledges and dogs sinking heavily in the
deepening slush; and Jan set off over the smooth toboggan trail made
by the company's agent in his return to Fort Churchill.
This trail followed close along the base of the ridge upon which he
had fought the missionary, joining that of Jean de Gravois miles
beyond. Jan climbed the ridge. From where he had made his attack, he
followed the almost obliterated trail of the Frenchman and his
Malemutes until he came to the lake; and then he knew that Jean de
Gravois had spoken the truth, for he found the missionary with his
face half buried in the slush, stark dead.
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