"That is my own private business, isn't it?"
"The deuce knows." Hensham looked at him gloomily, "I doubt if any one thing on earth is a man's private business only."
"It is until he is weak enough to show that he possesses that thing," said Dick; and a little later, in his own room, he said it again, with a laugh of contempt at himself. For he had been using these arguments on himself very often of late, and he knew the value of them.
Two mornings after Andree came to the door of his room and talked to him as he twisted and knotted the thongs of his outer moccasins. She was all ready for the continuance of the journey, and animation sparkled in her as she chattered, taking no heed of his curt replies. At last she ran to him, sliding her arms about him as he stooped.
"I do love you," she whispered. "Dick, Dick; je t'aime. Ah! Je t'aime."
His hands ceased their work. He did not move.
"You know how cruel I am being to you, Andree," he said.
"Bien! C'est toi. If you do make it so—still it is you," she said.
He was silent for a moment. Then he lifted her off and stood upright, looking out straight before him.
"What is it?" she asked. Then she touched him, half-frightened. "Dick? Is it that you are seeck?"
"No." He looked at her sharply, and then looked away again. "No. I was just deciding something, Andree."
"And is it now made sure?" she asked.
He looked at her again, speaking slowly.
"Yes," he said. It is now made sure."
Hensham himself went with them to the edge of the winter portage into Arctic Red River.
"You'll do it easily in the day," he said. "Only thirty-five miles, and the trail tramped already. You certainly have a first-class team, too."
His friendliness seemed forced, and he was in haste to be gone. Dick watched him swing over the snow-hummocks that hid the little naked houses of the Fort, and then he turned to Andree with a smile.
"You must follow me very closely and not talk at all
