“But he didn’t cuss Jacques. He said: ‘The poor devil’s been killed like as not; he wouldn’t go back on his pard.’ And one day he felt he was getting too weak to watch much more, and so he set a pole in the snow with a strip of blanket tied to it; and that tuckered him out so’s he couldn’t hardly crawl back to shelter. And with the last strength he had, he dragged the wood that was left up close to him where he could reach it, because he knew that in another day he couldn’t get up. “And then he began forgetting everything ’most, and having bad dreams that scared him, all the time a-worrying about the fire like as if he was half asleep, and hearing dogs barking, and trying to get up. “And then at last he didn’t know anything, till he was on a dog sled with the feel of hot soup in his belly. And when he came to, he said: ‘I knowed you’d come, Jacques; it was hard sledding without the grub, though.’ “And then he found out it wasn’t Jacques at all; only some Jesuit missionaries travelling from the North. They’d seen his signal of distress a-flying, and had come and got him. “And still Narcisse didn’t cuss Jacques. He said: ‘Poor devil’s got killed or something.’ “And by and by the Jesuits got him to Brown’s Landing, and he laid up there till the last of December, getting so he could walk. There wasn’t anybody at Brown’s who had seen Jacques; and Narcisse’s heart ached; he thought sure Jacques was dead. “And when Narcisse got well, he borrowed a horse from the factor at Brown’s and went south to Pierre. It was night when he got to the post. He rode up to the cabin where he and Jacques bached together, and tied his horse. There was a cheery light coming out of the windows, and that seemed odd, seeing that Jacques was likely dead somewheres up the trail. And what seemed stranger, there was someone singing inside, and every now and then a woman’d laugh. God! man, did you ever hear a woman laughing when your heart had been aching for weeks? “‘Beats the devil!’ Narcisse thought, ‘how quick folks fill your place when you’re dead!’ Gave him a tight feeling in the throat to think how someone was laughing inside, and Jacques somewheres up trail with the coyotes sniffing at him and the snow blowing over him all day and all night! “Then Narcisse slips up quiet as could be to the window and peeps in. He falls back like someone had hit him hard in the face. But nobody had. All he saw inside was Paulette and Jacques! “Narcisse leans against the cabin, dazed like, for quite a spell. Seemed like he couldn’t get it all through his head at once. Then he saw it all—the cards had been stacked on him. He should’ve been dead and he wasn’t. That was the trouble. “Didn’t cuss Jacques even then, Narcisse didn’t. Wasn’t mad—just ached in his chest like. And by and by he goes up to the window and taps on it with his fingers. And Jacques comes out into the starlight, whistling.