“Then Aidan shouldn’t go! His da won’t like it if he gets eaten, will he?”

That was a thought that had been gnawing at Jamie, but he didn’t repent allowing the boy to come.

“His mother was eaten by a bear, and he’s the right to come and see her avenged,” he said to Jem. He let go of the lad’s arm, took him by the shoulder, and turned him toward the cabin. “Go get your da; I want to talk to him.”

The other members of the hunting party were restive, and he told Ian to go on ahead with Gillebride and the dogs, see if they could get upon Germain’s track. Aidan looked wild, still white-faced, his black hair stood on end, and Jamie took hold of him again to quiet him.

“Stay by me, Aidan. We willna be more than a minute, but we must tell your da what’s ado.”

It was much less than a minute before Roger came out of the cabin, blinking in the sunlight, with Jem behind him, looking excited but solemn. Roger Mac bore the same traces of shock that they all did, though he had himself well in hand, and his face relaxed a little, seeing Jamie. Then it tightened again as he saw the rifle.

“You’re—”

“We are.” He motioned the boys firmly away and dropped his voice. “I need to tell Bobby, but I dinna want him to come. Will ye help me talk him round?”

“Of course. But—” He glanced toward Aidan and Jemmy, slouched at the side of the cabin. “Ye’re not taking them?”

“I willna take Jem if ye say no—that’s yours to say. But I think Aidan must come.”

Roger gave him a look of intense skepticism, and Jamie shrugged.

“He must,” he repeated stubbornly. All the reasons why not were clustering like flies round his head, but the remembered sense of an orphaned boy’s helpless despair was an iron splinter in his heart—and that weighed heavier than the rest.

THE FIRE HAD gone out. In the cabin, and in Bobby, too. He sat hunched and sagging in the corner of the settle by his cold hearth, head bent over his open hands as though he sought some meaning in the lines on his palms. He didn’t look up when they came in.

Jamie sank down on one knee and laid his hand over Bobby’s; it was cold and flaccid, but the fingers twitched a little.

“Robert, a charaid,” he said quietly. “I am going now to hunt the bear. With God’s help, we will find it and kill it. Aidan wishes to come with us, and I think it is right that he should.”

Bobby’s head rose with a jerk.

“Aidan? You want to take Aidan after the bear that—that—”

“I do.” Jamie took hold of Bobby’s other hand and squeezed them. “I swear on my own grandson’s head that I willna let any harm come to him.”