And if he found her, what would he say?
What would he do?
Why did he want to find her?
"God alone knows," he said aloud, borne down under his gloom, and went to bed.
Small things, as Father Roland had frequently said, decide great events.
The next morning came with a glorious sun; the world again was white and wonderful, and David found swift answers to the questions he had asked himself a few hours before.

Each day thereafter the sun was warmer, and with its increasing promise of the final "break-up" and slush snows, Upso-Gee's taciturnity and anxiety grew apace.

He was little more talkative than the painted devil chaser on the blackened canvas of his tepee, but he gave David to understand that he would have a hard time getting back with his dogs and sledge from Fond du Lac if the thaw came earlier than he had anticipated.

David marvelled at the old warrior's endurance, and especially when they crossed the forty miles of ice on Wollaston Lake between dawn and darkness.

At high noon the snow was beginning to soften on the sunny slopes even then, and by the time they reached the Porcupine, Snow Fox was chanting his despairing prayer nightly before that grinning thing on his tepee.