"With pleasure!" cried Jan. "But it will be a hard journey, m'sieur. I
must hurry, and you may not be accustomed to running behind the dogs."
Thornton rose and stretched out a hand.
"It can't be too hard for me," he said. "I wish--"
He stopped, and something in his low voice made Jan look straight into
his eyes. For a moment they gazed at each other in silence, and again
Jan saw in Thornton's face the look of loneliness and grief which he
had first seen in the half gloom of the hotel. It was the suppressed
note in Thornton's voice, of despair almost, that struck him deepest,
and made him hold the other's hand a moment longer. Then he turned to
his pack upon the sledge.
"I've got meat and coffee and hard biscuits," he said. "Will you have
breakfast with me?"
That day Jan and Thornton made fifty miles westward over the level
surface of the Saskeram, and camped again on the Saskatchewan. The
second day they followed the river, passed the Sipanock, and struck
south and west over the snow-covered ice for Prince Albert. It was
early afternoon of the fourth day when at last they came to the town.
"We will go to the offices of the great company," said Jan. "We will
lose no time."
It was Thornton now who guided him to the century-old building at the
west edge of the town.
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