“But he didn’t cuss Jacques. He just said to himself: ‘He didn’t go to take so much, and it was dark when he left.’ And then he just took the hand that was dealt him and began playing against a run of hard luck. The grub lasted only about a week, and close picking at that. Jacques had plenty of wood chopped up, and Narcisse sat all day by the fire with his leg aching and his stomach a-gnawing, a-looking down the white waste towards Brown’s. And night ’d come and no dog sled. Then day ’d come and he’d begin looking, looking. And when the grub was all gone, he soaked up all the leather there was about him and sucked that. And then he’d begin looking, looking, looking into the white waste, till he got so’s he could see dozens of dog sleds coming and vanishing, coming and vanishing.
“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.