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“‘I was sinking, sinking, so quiet and easy, when all at once I felt something beside me; I could hear it breathing, but I could not open my eyes at first, for, as I say, the lashes were froze. Something touch me, smell me, and a nose was push against my chest. I put out my hand ver’ soft and touch it. I had no fear, I was so glad I could have hug it, but I did not–I drew back my hand quiet and rub my eyes. In a little I can see. There stand the thing–a polar bear–not ten feet away, its red eyes shining. On my knees I spoke to it, talk to it, as I would to a man. It was like a great wild dog, fierce, yet kind, and I fed it with the fish which had been for Brandy-wine and the rest–but not to kill it! and it did not die. That night I lie down in my bag–no, I was not afraid! The bear lie beside me, between me and the sled. Ah, it was warm! Day after day we travel together, and camp together at night–ah, sweet Sainte Anne, how good it was, myself and the wild beast such friends, alone in the north! But to-day–a little while ago–something went wrong with me, and I got sick in the head, a swimming like a tide wash in and out. I fall down-asleep. When I wake I find you here beside me–that is all. The bear must have drag me here.'”

Pierre stuck a splinter into the fire to light another cigarette, and paused as if expecting the governor to speak, but no word coming, he continued: “I had my arm around him while we talked and come slowly down the hill. Soon he stopped and said, ‘This is the place.’ It was a cave of ice, and we went in. Nothing was there to see except the sled. Babiche stopped short. It come to him now that his good comrade was gone. He turned, and looked out, and called, but there was only the empty night, the ice, and the stars. Then he come back, sat down on the sled, and the tears fall…. I lit my spirit-lamp, boiled coffee, got pemmican from my bag, and I tried to make him eat. No. He would only drink the coffee. At last he said to me, ‘What day is this, Pierre?’ ‘It is the day of the Great Birth, Babiche,’ I said. He made the sign of the cross, and was quiet, so quiet! but he smile to himself, and kept saying in a whisper: ‘Ma p’tite Corinne! Ma p’tite Corinne!’ The next day we come on safe, and in a week I was back at Fort St. Saviour with Babiche and all the mails, and that most wonderful letter of the governor’s.”

“The letter was to tell a factor that his sick child in the hospital at Quebec was well,” the governor responded quietly. “Who was ‘Ma p’tite Corinne,’ Pierre?”

“His wife–in heaven; and his child–on the Chaudiere, m’sieu’. The child came and the mother went on the same day of the Great Birth. He has a soft heart–that Babiche!”

“And the white bear–so strange a thing!”

“M’sieu’, who can tell? The world is young up here. When it was all young, man and beast were good comrades, maybe.”

“Ah, maybe. What shall be done with Little Babiche, Pierre?”

“He will never be the same again on the old trail, m’sieu’!”

There was silence for a long time, but at last the governor said, musing, almost tenderly, for he never had a child: “Ma p’tite Corinne!–Little Babiche shall live near his child, Pierre. I will see to that.”

Pierre said no word, but got up, took off his hat to the governor, and sat down again.