"The lad's under orders, lass," McRae told her. "Gin they send him into the North after West, he'll just have to go. He canna argy-bargy aboot it." Jessie gave up, reluctantly. The little cavalcade started. Morse drove. The girl brought up the rear. Her mind was still on the hazard of the journey Beresford must take. When Morse stopped to rest the dogs for a few moments, she tucked up Onistah again and recurred to the subject. "I don't think Win Beresford should go after West alone except for a Cree guide. The Inspector ought to send another constable with him. Or two more. If he knew that man--how cruel and savage he is--" Tom Morse spoke quietly. "He's not going alone. I'll be with him." She stared. "You?" "Yes. Sworn in as a deputy constable." "But--he didn't say you were going when I spoke to him about it a little while ago." "He didn't know. I've made up my mind since." In point of fact he had come to a decision three seconds before he announced it. Her soft eyes applauded him. "That'll be fine. His friends won't worry so much if you're with him. But--of course you know it'll be a horrible trip--and dangerous." "No picnic," he admitted. She continued to look at him, her cheeks flushed and her face vivid. "You must like Win a lot. Not many men would go." "We're good friends," Morse answered dryly. "Anyhow, I owe West something on my own account." The real reason why he was going he had not given. During the days she had been lost he had been on the rack of torture. He did not want her to suffer months of such mental distress while the man she loved was facing alone the peril of his grim work in the white Arctic desert. They resumed the journey. Jessie said no more. She would not mention the subject again probably. But it would be a great deal in her thoughts. She lived much of the time inside herself with her own imagination. This had the generosity and the enthusiasm of youth. She wanted to believe people fine and good and true. It warmed her to discover unexpected virtues in them. Mid-afternoon brought them to Faraway. They drove down the main street of the village to McRae's house while the half-breeds cheered from the door of the Morse store. Jessie burst into the big family room where Matapi-Koma sat bulging out from the only rocking-chair in the North woods. "Oh, Mother--Mother!" the girl cried, and hugged the Cree woman with all the ardent young savagery of her nature. The Indian woman's fat face crinkled to an expansive smile. She had stalwart sons of her own, but no daughters except this adopted child. Jessie was very dear to her. In a dozen sentences the girl poured out her story, the words tumbling pell-mell over each other in headlong haste. Matapi-Koma waddled out to the sled. "Onistah stay here," she said, and beamed on him. "Blackfoot all same Cree to Matapi-Koma when he friend Jessie. Angus send word nurse him till he well again."