There had been moments of watchfulness, of
uncertainty, on Jim's part, the first few hours of the first night after
they left the Cree reservation; but the conviction speedily came to Jim
that all was well; for the chief slept soundly from the moment he lay
down in his blankets between the dogs. Then Jim went to sleep as in his
own bed, and, waking, found Arrowhead lighting a fire from a little load
of sticks from the sledges. And between murderer and captor there sprang
up the companionship of the open road which brings all men to a certain
land of faith and understanding, unless they are perverted and vile.
There was no vileness in Arrowhead. There were no handcuffs on his
hands, no sign of captivity; they two ate out of the same dish, drank
from the same basin, broke from the same bread. The crime of Arrowhead,
the gallows waiting for him, seemed very far away. They were only two
silent travellers, sharing the same hardship, helping to give material
comfort to each other--in the inevitable democracy of those far places,
where small things are not great nor great things small; where into men's
hearts comes the knowledge of the things that matter; where, from the
wide, starry sky, from the august loneliness, and the soul of the life
which has brooded there for untold generations, God teaches the values of
this world and the next.
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