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It was only when Mac had marched off, glowering still, and sternly refusing to meet Kaviak's tearful but grateful eyes it was only then, bending over the sled and making fast the furs, that Father Wills, all to himself, smiled a little. It wasn't until they were in sight of the smoke from the Little Cabin that Mac slackened his pace.
"Humph!" he said to himself, "to look at you a body'd think 'The Origin' had never been written, and Spencer and Huxley had never been born. He knocked again, and again turned about to scan the cross. "Just as much a superstition, just as much a fetich as Kaviak's seal-plug or the Shamán's eagle feather.
The Boy contributed a shirt of his own, and helped Mac to put it on the incredibly thin little figure. The shirt came down to Kaviak's heels, and had to have the sleeves rolled up every two minutes. But by the time the reindeer-steak was nearly done Kaviak was done, too, and O'Flynn had said, "That Spissimen does ye credit, Mac."
From time to time with reverent finger he touched silver boat and red-foil top, and watched, fascinated, how they swung. A white child in a tenth of the time would have eaten the cakes, torn off the transfiguring tinfoil, tired of the tree, and forgotten it. The Boy felt some compunction at the sight of Kaviak's steadfast fidelity. "Look here, we'll set the tree up where you can see it better."
"And let's find it nearer water-level where the steamers can see it right away." "What about the kid?" "Me come," said Kaviak, with a highly obliging air. "No; you stay at home." "No; go too." "Go too, thou babbler! Kaviak's a better trail man than some I could mention." "We'll have to carry him home," objected Potts.
Mac understood better, he said; had once brought a chap round that everybody said was ... dead. He wasn't dead. The great thing was not to give in. A few minutes after, Kaviak's eyelids fluttered, and came down over the upturned eyeballs. Mac, with a cry that brought a lump to the Colonel's throat, gathered the child up in his arms and ran with him up the hill to the cabin.
The Colonel would climb up and have forty winks in the top one before the Boy got in for their game of chess. He didn't know how long he had slept when a faint scratching pricked through the veil of slumber, and he said to himself, "Kaviak's on a raid again," but he was too sodden with sleep to investigate.
"Well, it's mesilf that'll take the liberty o' mintionin' that I ain't goin' to stand furr another minyit an Esquimer's cuttin' down my rations. Sure it's a fool I've been!" "You can't help that," Mac chopped out. "Say Mac," said Potts in a drunken voice, "I'm talkin' to you like a friend. You want to get a move on that kid." "Kaviak's goin' won't make any more difference than a fly's."
The only person he wasn't sworn friends with was the handy-man, and there came to be a legend current in the camp, that Kaviak's first attempt at spontaneously stringing a sentence under that roof was, "Me got no use for Potts." The best thing about Kaviak was that his was no craven soul.
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