His eyes were red. He had a touch of runner's cramp. He slept for
twenty-four hours in a warm bed without stirring. When he awoke he
raged at the commanding officer of the barrack for letting him sleep
so long, ate three meals in one, and did up his business in a hurry.

His heart warmed with pleasure when he sorted out of his mail nine
letters for Pelliter, all addressed in the same small, girlish hand.
There was none for himself-- none of the sort which Pelliter was
receiving, and the sickening loneliness within him grew almost
suffocating.

He laughed softly as he broke a law. He opened one of Pelliter's
letters-- the last one written-- and calmly read it. It was filled
with the sweet tenderness of a girl's love, and tears came into his
red eyes. Then he sat down and answered it. He told the girl about
Pelliter, and confessed to her that he had opened her last letter. And
the chief of what he said was that it would be a glorious surprise to
a man who was going mad (only he used loneliness in place of madness)
if she would come up to Churchill the following spring and marry him
there. He told her that he had opened her letter because he loved
Pelliter more than most men loved their brothers. Then he resealed the
letter, gave his mail to the superintendent, packed his medicines and
supplies, and made ready to return.

On this same day there came into Churchill a halfbreed who had been
hunting white foxes near Blind Eskimo, and who now and then did scout
work for the department. He brought the information that he had seen a
white man and a white woman ten miles south of the Maguse River. The
news thrilled MacVeigh.