days. Then he will go down in the first slush. And"--Jean looked about
him cautiously again, and whispered low--"if you see anything about
the dead missioner that you do not understand--THINK OF JEAN DE
GRAVOIS!"

He rose to his feet and bent over Jan's white face.

"I am going the Athabasca way to-day," he finished. "Perhaps, Jan
Thoreau, you will hear after a time that it would be best for Jean de
Gravois never to return again to this Post Lac Bain. 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.