Just for a moment it looked as though a clash was inevitable. Just for a moment it seemed as if the man's half-drunken madness was about to drive him to extremes. But the girl's cool nerve, or more probably, perhaps, the presence of her rifle, seemed to have a sobering effect. There was the snick of Little One Man's razor-like knife as he released his bound comrade from the flogging post, then Nicol, with a filthy oath, flung his quirt on the ground, and, turning, thrust his way through the crowd, and strode back to the fort.
Five minutes later Keeko was down at the landing. She was standing looking on while her Indians cast off the moorings of the canoes. She was shaking from head to foot. But not a sign of her weakness was permitted in the sharp, clear orders she flung at her crew.
"What's amiss with Keeko?"
The sick woman opened a pair of startled eyes. She half turned her face towards the darkened doorway.
Nicol was standing there. He had entered the room at that moment, but with a quiet unusual to him. She gazed at him without reply. Perhaps the activity of her brain was dulling. Perhaps she was searching the face, the sight of which she had learned in years to hate and fear.
It was a handsome face still, for all the man was approaching fifty. It was fleshy, and its dark beard did not improve it. But the eyes were keen and fine for all there was coldness and cruelty in their hard depths. The abundant moustache was without a tinge of grey in it, but it lacked trimness, and hung over a cruel mouth like a tattered curtain. The woman knew the value of these good looks, however. They served to mask a mind and heart that knew no scruple. So it was that her reply finally came in a quick apprehensive question.
"What d'you mean?" she gasped, in her spasmodic way. "What's she done?"
Nicol laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. He moved across to the bed and sprawled himself upon its foot, while his eyes searched the emaciated face as though some secret speculation was going on in his mind while he talked of other things.
"She held me up with a gun," he said slowly. "That's all. She held me up! Me! And she did it with a nerve I had to reckon was pretty fine. There were twenty or more of the darn Shaunekuks around. Guess I was mad at the time. But I had to laff after."
The unmoving eyes of the woman on the bed were reading him. No mood of his could deceive her. She had learned her lesson bitterly in something like seventeen years. The man was acting now. He was laughing over an incident which filled him with a consuming rage.
"You came here to tell me about it." The voice was faint with bodily weakness, but there was no weariness in the anxious watchfulness of her eyes. "Guess you'd best tell it. It's not your way to waste time in this room with anything pleasant to hand out. It's easier for me to listen, and nothing you can say can do me much hurt."
The man laughed again. It was a laugh that was cut off abruptly.
"I don't need to look for sympathy where you are," he said. "Anyway I don't guess I need any."
"No."
The antagonism of the monosyllable was unmistakable.
Nicol shrugged.
"That swine, Snake Foot," he said. "He refused to do as I told him. He guessed Keeko needed him at the landing, and he hadn't time for me. So I took him to the flogging post."
It was said coldly. Quite without emotion.
"And you flogged him with your—quirt?"
"Sure."
The man's teeth clipped together.
"Oh, yes," he went on, after a moment. "I'm not the sort to let a neche get away with that sort of thing. You see, I reckon I'm master around this layout."
"And Keeko?"
Again came the man's ominous laugh in reply.
"She was quick. I reckoned she was here with you. Making her fancy farewell. But she was around before I'd hardly begun. Oh, yes. She acted her show piece, and if you'd seen it I guess she'd have got your applause good. It was against me. She jumped in front of that red-skinned swine so my quirt nearly came down on her. But it didn't. And I'm glad. Guess she's too soft, and pretty, and dandy to hurt—yet. A feller doesn't feel that way with women later, when they show him the hell they've always got waiting on any fool man. She's got grit. Sure she has. It's good for a girl to have grit, and I'd say she's got it—plenty. But she put up a gun at me. And I reckon she meant to use it if need be. It's that that's the matter. That's been put into her darn fool head. That's not Keeko."
The man's manner had changed abruptly. His heavy brows depressed, and, to the listener, it was as though she could hear his teeth grit over each word he spoke. But even so she could not restrain her passionate joy at the defeat the man's words admitted.
"She beat you?" she said, a great light flooding her big eyes. "She beat you," she repeated, "and made you quit. She took your measure for the coward who could flog a wretched neche who couldn't defend himself. I'm glad."
For a moment the sting of the woman's words looked like overwhelming the man's restraint. But the black shadow of his brows suddenly lightened, and again he shrugged his heavy shoulders with a transparent indifference.
"Oh, yes," he admitted. "She beat me." Then he added slowly, and with an appearance of deep reflection: "But then she's young. How old? Nineteen?" He nodded. "Nineteen, and as pretty as a picture. Prettier by a heap than her mother ever was." His lips parted with a noise that expressed appreciation and appetite. "Say, did you ever see such a figure? She kind of makes you think of a yearling deer, or the picture of one of those swell girls Diana always has chasing around her. And she don't know a thing but what this country's taught her—which I guess isn't a lot. But she can learn. Oh, yes. She can learn." Then with deliberate, cold emphasis: "And one of the things she'll learn is that she can't hold me up with a gun without paying for it."
The mother's eyes widened with fear, with loathing.
"What do you mean?" she cried, with a force which must have alarmed anyone who understood or cared for her bodily condition. "Pay? How can you make her pay? Oh, you don't know Keeko. You don't know what you're up against. Keeko would shoot you like a dog if you dared——"
The man raised a protesting hand and smiled into the eyes which betrayed so much.
"Easy, easy," he said. "You're jumping too far. It's taken you years, and I guess you haven't learnt yet. Guess I'll have to do better. You're one of those fool women who never learn. If you'd horse sense you wouldn't have said what you handed me just now. You're glad Keeko took my measure for a coward. You're pleased, mighty pleased she beat me. Oh, yes, I know, you've done your best she should act that way. That's because you're scared, and you don't love me like you used to. You reckon she'd shoot me like a dog. Anyway you hope so."
Nicol shook his head, and prolonged the smile with which he regarded the mother's emaciated features.
"Oh, no," he went on. "She won't shoot me like a dog. But I'll tell you what will happen. I don't mind telling you now. She won't get back till the fall. And when she comes back you won't see her. So you won't be able to hand her the things I'm saying. You're more than half dead now. You'll be all the way before she comes back, and I guess you'll be able to lie around somewhere out of sight in the woods watching the game I play. I'm going to show Keeko what a fool she was to listen to your talk. She's just going to see the dandy fellow I really am. She's going to be queen of this camp, set up on a throne I've made for her. And if I know women she's going to fall for it. There's no need for scruple. She's not my daughter. I'm not even her step-father. I've a hand full of trumps waiting for her, and when you're dead, and she gets back, I'm going to play 'em all. Then—after—when I'm tired of the game, she's going to pay for that gun play till she hates to remember the fool mother whose talk she ever listened to. We're here a thousand miles from anywhere, which is the sort of thing only a crazy woman like you could ever for—Hello! What in hell d'you want?"
Nicol sat up. In a moment his entire manner changed. He scowled threateningly as he eyed the dusky figure in the doorway. It was the squaw Lu-cana whose moccasined feet had given out no sound as she approached.
"White feller man come by river," she said, in the soft, hushed voice of her race, while her eyes refused to face the scowl of the white man.
"White man? What the hell! Who the devil is he?"
Nicol had risen to his feet, his manner brutally threatening. The squaw feared him, as did all the Indians. But in the presence of the sick white woman she found a measure of courage.
"Him wait. Him say, 'Boss Nicol, yes?'" she replied, and stood waiting with her dark eyes fixed upon the woman she served.
But the sick woman gave no sign. Her poor troubled brain was staggered by the hideous threat which she had been forced to listen to. She lay there like a corpse prepared for burial, utterly unconcerned for that which was passing.
Just for a moment the man hesitated. He glanced back at the bed as though regretful at being dragged from his torture of the defenceless woman lying there. Then with a shrug, he moved across the room, and, thrusting the squaw aside, hurried out to meet his unexpected visitor.
It was an utterly different man who shook the visitor by the hand. Nicol was smiling with a pleasant amiability. And no man could better express cordiality than he.
"It's 'Tough' Alroy," he said, as though that individual were the only person in the world he wanted to see. "Well, well," he went on heartily. "My head's just bursting with pleasure and surprise. Say, I often remember the days—and nights—in Seal Bay. Gee! This brings back times, eh? Is it just a trip or?——"
"Business."
The man grinned. He was more than well named. His black eyes were full of good-humoured deviltry. He was a type, in his picturesque buckskin, familiar enough among the trail men of the Northland. Tough, as his nickname suggested, hard, unscrupulous, ready for anything that the gods of fortune passed down to him, nothing concerned, nothing mattered so that he gathered enough for a red time at his journey's end.
"Business?"
"Yep. Lorson Harris. It's big. Guess I've a brief along with me that's to be set right into your hands, an' when you've eaten the stuff wrote ther', why, you need to light a pipe with it, an' see ther's none left over. I've been takin' a hand up to now. But ther's reasons why I've cut out. It's for you now. Can we parley?"
The trader's cordiality had become absorbed in a deeply serious regard. He was guessing hard. Lorson Harris was the one man in the world whom he seriously feared. He knew he was bound to him by chains which galled every time he strained against them. The great trader's tentacles were spread out over the length and breadth of the Northland. There was no escape from them. He had said a few moments before that here, at Fort Duggan, they were a thousand miles from anywhere. But then he was thinking of something quite different. So long as he lived in the Northland he knew he was within immediate reach of Lorson Harris. What was this message from Lorson Harris? What did it portend?
He abruptly turned and indicated the broad sill of the door of the main fort building.
"Sit right here, boy," he said, forcing himself to a return to his original cordiality. "Guess there's room for us both. We can talk till you're tired here. After we're through I don't seem to see any difficulty in raking out a bucket of red-hot fire juice or any other old thing you happen to fancy."
Tough Alroy grinned and accepted the invitation.
"That's the talk," he said. "Here's Lorson's letter. You read that right away, and I'll make a big talk after."
The two men sat down, and while Nicol tore open the dirty envelope, and read his taskmaster's orders, Tough lit a pipe, and watched him out of the corners of his black, restless, wicked eyes.
A roar of fury echoes through the primeval forest. It plays amidst the countless aisles of jack-pine. It loses itself in the dense growing tamarack, or dies amidst the softer plumage of spruce. It is no mere bellow of impotent rage. It is a note of defiance. It is a challenge to the legions of the forest. It is the gage of battle flung without reserve.
Wide-set eyes blaze their search amidst the deeper shadows. They are eager as well as furious. They are seeking an adversary who shuns open conflict and wounds from afar. The great head is proudly raised aloft, and gaping nostrils on a great clubbed muzzle snuff violently at the air. A treacherous blow has torn open the channels of life and saturated the heaving flanks with their rich, red tide. The King Moose stands at bay.
With the last echo, the challenge is flung again. It is ruthless, insistent, and deep with the violence of outraged might.
The answer comes. It comes in man's own good time. It comes in the crack of a rifle, and the moose jolts round with a spasmodic jerk. In a moment a movement amongst the surrounding tree-trunks captures its gaze. There is a pause, breathless, silent. Savage wrath leaps anew, and down sweeps the great head till the spread of antlers is couched like a forest of lance points. The huge body is hurled in a headlong charge.
It is an act of supreme courage as splendid as it is hopeless. The elusive foe applies a wit, a skill undreamed of in the beast mind. He is gone in a flash, and the wounded creature stands amazed, furious, baulked, while vicious hoofs churn the soil, and a deep-throated roar awakens again the echoes of the forest.
But there is desperation added to defiance in the challenge now. There is uncertainty, too. The heaving flanks are dripping with a crimson tide. The creature is sorely wounded. For all its pride and courage, its sufferings admit of no denial. The foe has scored. He has scored heavily.
The climax is approaching. The final challenge is taken up at last as the king beast would have it.
The man reappears. In a moment he is standing out amidst the tree-trunks, slim, erect, a puny figure in a world of giants. He is not so cowardly after all. He stands there calmly, with eyes alert, watchful, measuring, ready to gamble his wit and skill against whatever odds may chance.
The moose only sees. It has no thought. Only its rage. No calculation but its immense strength. Savagery, courage, alone inspire its warfare. So it is that fierce satisfaction rings in its greeting of the vision.
It is a moment pregnant with possibility. The doomed creature summons its last ounce of physical might. Down drops the head till the hot blast of nostrils flings up the mouldering soil of the ages. The great split hoofs stamp a furious tattoo. They claw at the loose earth. Then, like a flash, an avalanche of rage is flung into the combat.
The time has come. The man has played his game to the desired end. The creature's fury has no terror for him. With his rifle pressed to his shoulder, and eye glancing over the sights, he waits calmly, and full of simple confidence. Twenty yards! Fifteen! With the low, sweeping antlers, and the rush of hoofs that could disembowel at a single blow, it is a desperate test of nerve. Slowly, gently, a finger compresses itself about the trigger.
But something happens. The moose flounders in its rush. It is the ungainly roll of a rudderless ship. It stumbles. A second, and its mad rush ends. With a curious gasping sigh it plunges to the earth.
And the man? With his undischarged weapon lowered from his shoulder, and the sharp crack of some stranger's rifle ringing in his ears, he stares about him in utter and complete bewilderment.
Marcel's bewilderment was swiftly passing. Hot, impulsive resentment was quick to take its place. All his mind and heart had been set upon that kill. He had been robbed. Someone had robbed him in the very moment of his victory, a victory which had cost him nine days of an arduous trail.
There was no sign. No sign anywhere. The silence of the world about him was complete, that silence which no earthly agency ever seems to have power to break up seriously. Like the fallen moose his angry eyes searched the shadowed aisles for the intruder upon whom to vent his hasty wrath. But like that other there only remained disappointment to add to the fire of his anger. He seemed alone in the primordial world. And yet he knew that other eyes, human eyes, were observing his every movement.
At last he abandoned his search, and turned again to the creature stretched in the stillness of death upon the mouldering carpet of the forest. The bitterness of regret had replaced his impulsive heat. Perhaps, even the philosophy of the hunter had yielded him resignation. At any rate he quickly became absorbed in the splendid qualities of the fallen monarch. And that which he beheld stirred anew his youthful enthusiasm.
It was an old bull, hoary with age, and scarred with the wounds of a hundred battles. It was truly a king in a world where might alone prevails. He moved up to the wide-spreading antlers supporting the regal head, as if to refuse it the final degradation of complete contact with the soil. An exclamation of appreciation broke from him. His gaze was fixed upon a minute, blood-rimmed puncture just behind the right eye. It was the wound where the intruder's bullet had crashed into the infuriated creature's brain.
"Gee! That's a swell shot!" he muttered, speaking his thought aloud, with the habit bred of the great silences.
"But I'm sorry—now."
No echo of the forest could have startled more. No spur could have stirred Marcel to swifter movement. He was erect in a moment, and turned about, towering in his generous height over the slim creature smiling up into his bewildered eyes. A white girl, wide-eyed, beautiful, was standing before him.
"Now?"
Marcel echoed the stranger's final word stupidly.
"Yes. I'm grieved all to death—now," the girl said, with a composure in striking contrast to Marcel's obvious confusion. "I just am. I hadn't right. But I was scared—scared to death. You don't understand that. Why, sure you don't. How could you? You're a man. I'm only a girl. And I had to stand around, just waiting, with another feller within a yard or so of sheer death, while all the time I had means in my hand of fixing things right for him. That's how it was when I saw that moose breaking for you. And you—why, you just looked like two cents standing there while that feller's hoofs and horns wanted to leave you feed for the timber wolves. I couldn't stand it. My nerve broke. I drew on him. I had to. I loosed off. Then, I s'pose, I woke up. When I saw him drop I knew just what I'd done. I'd stolen your beast, and—I'm sorry to death."
A girl. A white girl. Oh, yes, there was no mistake, for all the mannishness of her clothing. Marcel stared. He had listened to her words of regret barely comprehending their drift. He was absorbed by that which he beheld, wondering, amazed.
A white girl here, alone in the primordial world of—Unaga.
From the pretty, fair hair peeping from under her beaver cap to the moccasined feet, so absurdly small, under the wide-cut buckskin chapps or trousers that clad her nether limbs, he searched stupidly for the answer to the thousand questions which flooded his brain. Who was she? How came she there? That amazing shot?
He noted her eyes, so wide and deep-fringed, and of a blue such as he had never yet beheld in the Northern skies. Their dazzling light left him almost dizzy with intoxication. Her cheeks, perfect, with the bloom of health acquired in a life of exposure to the elements. Then her sweet lips parted in a smile that revealed a hint of even teeth of pearly whiteness. But these things were not all. No. There was her tall, slim figure under its buckskin clothing. The effect was superlative.
What a vision for passionate youthful eyes to gaze upon in the shadowed world of the Northern forests, where life and death rub shoulders every moment of time. The youth in Marcel was aflame. There flashed through his mind a vague memory of the wooing of the painted women of Seal Bay.
The girl's explanation, her regrets, meant nothing to him.
"What—? Where? Who are you?" he blurted, all his amazed delight flung into a startled demand.
"I'm Keeko."
The reply was without a shadow of hesitation. It came simply, for the wide, amused eyes had seen the youth's confusion, and the woman's mind behind them approved.
"I'm Keeko," the girl repeated, as Marcel still struggled for composure. "And I came right along in a hurry to tell you I'm sorry——"
Marcel thrust up a hand and pushed back his cap. It was a movement full of significance.
"Sorry?" he cried, with an awkward laugh. "Guess you don't need to be sorry. I need to feel that way, acting foolish, gawking around here like some fool kid. But—you see—you're a—girl."
Keeko's smile broadened into a delicious ripple of laughter.
"Sure," she nodded. "You didn't guess I was a-jack-rabbit?"
Marcel was recovering. He, too, laughed.
"I didn't guess anything," he said. Then with a gesture of helplessness which further added to Keeko's amusement: "I couldn't. You see I'm—well—I'm just darned! That's all—just darned!"
"I know," the girl cried delightedly. "You didn't guess to find a girl around. You weren't looking to find anything diff'rent from those things they sort of experimented with when they first reckoned making a camping ground in space for life to move around on. But you haven't said about that old moose. I robbed you——"
"Oh, hell!" Marcel cried, flinging his head back in a happy, buoyant laugh. "We'll just cut that darn old moose right out of this thing. You're welcome to shoot up any old thing I've got. You're Keeko——"
"Who are you?"
"I—oh, I'm Marcel, and I come from—" He broke off and shook his head. "No, I can't hand you that."
Marcel gazed down into the girl's pretty eyes. He had only just remembered in time. Somehow this girl seemed to have robbed him of his wits as well as his moose.
"Say," he went on, a moment later, with a sobering of his happy eyes. "I came near making a bad break that time. You see, I just can't tell you where I come from. There's secrets in the darn old Northland some folks would give a heap of dollars to get wise to. Where I come from is one of 'em. What I'm free to tell is I'm mostly a pelt hunter. I've a biggish outfit of Eskimo, and the usual truck of the summer trail, back there on the river that comes out of the east. We've got this territory cached with food dumps and things, and we're out, scattered miles over the country, beating it for pelts with trap and gun. Guess we figger to stop right out till it starts in to freeze up. And just about the time the old sun gets sick worrying to make Unaga a fit place for better than skitters and things, and chases off for its winter sleep, why we're hitting right back to—the place I come from. I've been making the summer trail ever since I was a kid, which isn't a long way back, and I allow this is the first time it's ever been my luck to find better than the silences that's liable to set you plumb crazed if you don't happen to have been born to 'em, the same as I was. Guess that's about all there is to me I know of, except that secret I can't just hand you."
It was all said so frankly, so simply. It was not the story Marcel had to tell that established confidence. It was the telling of it. And it needed no words from the girl to admit her approval. It was shining in her smiling eyes, while a wonderful feeling began to stir in a heart that was only a shade less simple than the heart of the youth.
Keeko, woman-like, applied no reason where her feelings were concerned. She liked the man, and she liked the name he called himself by. She liked his great, height and breadth of shoulder, and she liked his clear, handsome eyes with their ingenuous smile. That was sufficient.
She nodded with that intimate air of sympathy.
"I know," she said readily. "It's a land of secrets north of 60°. That's why folks live in a country that can't ever get out of its eternal sleep, and only the nightmare of storm disturbs it. The secret isn't usually ours. The secret mostly belongs to those who brought us here, and though maybe we don't understand it right, why, the thing just grows up in our minds, and we find we couldn't talk of it to strangers any more than if it was our own. That's the way of it. It's a country that starts in to break your kid's heart, and ends by making you love it—if it doesn't kill you."
"Oh, yes. I love this old north," she went on with gentle warmth. "Maybe you do, too. It's half-baked and dead-tough anyway. But it teaches even a girl the things it doesn't hurt anyone to know. It's good for us all to get up against Nature in the cold raw. Guess if I was back in a city the biggest thing in my life would likely be squeezing hands made to do things with into gloves that weren't. Or maybe reckoning up which beau could hand me the best time before I got too old to count. It isn't that way here. The north teaches you to think and act right, and you don't have to worry that the girl next door's wearing a later mode in shirt waists than you. No. Man or woman, we've got to make good or go under. We're all here for that, only some of us don't know it. I'm kind of glad I've learned it, and I'm mighty grateful to those who've taught me. That's why I'm out on the summer trail same as you. But I've only a small outfit. Three neches and two canoes back there on the river that comes up out of the south, and doesn't quit till it reaches the seas of snow and ice that never thaw. We can't chase the territory wide like you can. We can't carry food for caches, or make the big portages. So we hunt the river, and a day's trail on either bank. There's beaver and fox to be had that way, and it's most all I can hope for. I don't worry if we get it plenty. You see, I need it big—this trip."
Something of the strangeness of the encounter was passing from Marcel's mind. A curious feeling of intimacy was induced by the girl's brief outline of the things that concerned herself. Then, above all, there was that youthful desire, untainted by any baseness of passion, the natural desire inspired by the appeal of a sweet face, and the smiling eyes of a young girl, battling in a country where there is no margin for the strongest of men.
Nor had Marcel forgotten all the early teachings of Uncle Steve. He knew it was demanded of him that woman, in all her moods, was man's heritage to help, to protect, to relieve, where possible, of those heavy burdens with which nature so mercilessly weighs her down. The opening lay there to his hand, and he seized upon it with an impulse that needed nothing to support it.
"You're needing pelts?" he cried. "Why, that's great!"
Keeko laughed shortly. She failed to realize the thought prompting Marcel's evident delight.
"It would be greater if I didn't," she returned, with a rueful shake of the head.
"How's that?"
"Why it's days since our traps have shown us so much as a wolf track. And it's nearly a week since we took our last beaver. There's three months of the season left, and I'm needing a three-thousand-dollar trade with Lorson Harris at Seal Bay. Maybe you don't know what that means?"
"Maybe I do," Marcel laughed.
"You do?" Keeko was forced to a responsive laugh. "Yes. It means a whole lot," she went on. "And—I don't guess we've taken five hundred dollars yet—at his price. Last year I took three silver foxes, and a brace of jet black beauties that didn't set him squealing at fifty dollars each. No. They were jo-dandies," she sighed appreciatively. "But it hasn't been that way this season," she continued, with pathetic regret. "It seems like there isn't a single fox this side of the big north hills."
Marcel shook his head.
"But there is," he said very definitely.
"Is there?" Keeko shook her head. "Then I must have been looking the other way most all the time."
A reply hovered upon Marcel's lips. But he seemed to change his mind. He could not stand the obscuring of the sun of the girl's pretty eyes. He turned away, and laid his rifle aside. Then he sprawled his big body at the foot of an adjacent tree, and sat with his wide shoulders propped against it for support.
"Say, Keeko," he cried, gazing up into the troubled eyes watching him, and addressing the girl by name for the first time, "let's sit. We've got to make a big talk. Anyway, I have. I feel like one of those fool neches sitting in a war council, and handing out wisdom that wouldn't fool a half-hatched skitter. Still, I reckon I've got one hell of a notion, and notions worry me to death if I can't hand 'em on to some feller who can't defend himself. I'm not often worried that way. Will you listen awhile?"
Marcel's effort was not without effect. The girl's eyes cleared of their shadows, swept away by a smiling amusement. She found him quite irresistible in the gloom of her twilight surroundings, and forthwith permitted herself to subside upon the ground opposite him, with legs crossed, and her rifle lying across her knees.
"It's easy listening," she said with a laugh.
"Good!"
Marcel laughed, too.
"Now, it's this," he began, with a profound solemnity that delighted the girl. "If I hand you anything you don't fancy listening to, why, say so right away, and I'll quit. You see, I don't get much practice handing it out to a girl, and I'm liable to make breaks—bad breaks. You see, we're mostly a thousand miles outside the world, and you're a lone girl in a hell of a lone land. I'd be thankful for you to get hold of it that I was raised to reckon a girl needs all the help a decent man can hand her. That's his duty. Plumb. And he hasn't a right on earth to figger on any return. Well, I haven't got over that notion yet. It goes with me every time, and I pray the good God of this darnation wilderness it always will. I allow this is just preliminary, to make you feel good before I start in to talk. It isn't the sermon you may guess it is, so that'll make it easier remembering what lies back of my head when you start—guessing."
Marcel produced a pipe and stuffed it with the tobacco he flaked off a sad-looking plug. The pipe was crudely carved in Eskimo fashion out of the ivory of a walrus tusk. Keeko watched him silently with an interest she made no attempt to disguise, while deep in her heart was stirring that feeling she was wholly unconscious of. His "preliminary" was unnecessary. In her woman's way she read him to her own satisfaction.
He lit his pipe carefully, and as carefully extinguished his match. They were in a forest where the decaying vegetation was as dry as tinder.
"You need pelts," he said, after a considering pause. "You need three thousand dollars trade in 'em. You want silver fox and black fox. Well—you can have enough to set Lorson Harris squealing."
Keeko was startled.
"But—I don't get you!" she cried, with the helplessness of complete amazement.
"It's easy."
Marcel smoked on in leisurely enjoyment of the surprise he had given this nymph of the primordial.
Keeko shook her head.
"You mean—" she broke off. "No, you're a pelt hunter yourself. You said so. We're rivals on the fur trail."
"Rivals?" Marcel sat up in his turn. "We can't be," he said earnestly. "I'm some sort of a man. You're a—girl. You've forgotten."
They sat regarding each other. A great hope was in Marcel's heart. In fancy he was picturing to himself months of this girl's companionship in the deep silences and tremendous solitudes which had become so much a part of his life. He had visions of this tall, beautiful creature always by his side, ready, skilful, eager. With the sympathy of their craft always between them, and, for himself, a purpose, an incentive such as never in his life had he possessed. The contemplation of it all was too wonderful for words. It was a dream, a happy, wonderful dream.
But for Keeko it was all different. She was not concerned with a dream future. She was thinking of the generosity, the reckless generosity that set this splendid youth desirous of yielding all to satisfy her needs. He asked no question as to those needs. He knew nothing of her, or of those shadows lurking in her background. He only understood that she wanted, and it was his pleasure and purpose to supply that want at his own expense.
"I haven't forgotten," she said, with something like a sigh. "But you want to hand me furs that are your own trade. And I—I can't accept them."
She shook her head definitely. Then with an effort she thrust the regret she felt into the background, and her eyes lit with a smile of humour.
"You haven't heard the notionIwas raised to—yet," she said.
"No."
Marcel was satisfied with the return of her smile.
"Would you like to?"
"Sure."
The girl laughed.
"I guess it's not as simple as yours," she said. "A woman's reason isn't generally simple. You see, she musses up feelings with argument which generally confuse the issue. Guess a woman's life is mostly a thing of confusion. You see, she started bad, though it wasn't her fault. When the folks, who ought to know better, started in to make man before his mother you can't wonder it's that way. Now I was raised to believe man is woman's rightful protector. There's women who reckon she's got man left standing when it comes to helping things along. But she's the sort of woman who always cooks her own favourite dish when she reckons to give her man a real treat. There's the other woman who's so sure man is her rightful protector that she's not content to wait around for his protection. She gets right out and grabs it, along with anything else he's foolish enough to leave within her reach. Then there's the woman who shouts around that she doesn't need protecting anyway. She mostly ends up with grabbing all the man-protection that happens to be lying around, without worrying whose 'claim' she's jumping. But to get back to the notion I was raised to, it seems to me that man is surely a woman's rightful protector, but there isn't a thing on earth can make me see that she's the right to take any sort of protection he hasn't the right to give. That sort of woman's a vampire. And vampires are things I'd like to see drowned so deep they can't ever resurrect. If I took your pelts I'd be a vampire for taking something you haven't the right to give. They're your trade, and I guess out of your trade you've got to pay your outfit of Eskimo. Do you see? To my way of thinking those furs are not yours to give, just because you find a fool girl squealing for three thousand dollars of trade. But say," she added, with a warmth of real feeling in her smiling eyes, "I thank you for the thought. I thank you right from the bottom of my heart."
Marcel remained quite undisturbed. He sat deliberately puffing at his absurdly ornamented pipe, his honest eyes meditatively smiling. The girl's rejection of his offer only made him the more determined. At last he stirred, and sat up cross-legged, and, removing his pipe, pointed his words with its stem, as though to drive them more fully home.
"That's all right," he said. "I'm making no kick on that. It just makes me feel how sore you need those pelts, and how right I am to want to hand 'em to you. I've told you what I fancy doing. Now we'll form a committee and negotiate. Folks always form committees when they can't agree, and then they can't agree worse. Committees always elect one of their members chairman, and he has a casting vote. We're a committee of two, so we'll elect a chairman, and that'll make three—chairman with casting vote. I'll elect myself chairman. That way we'll have no sort of difficulty. All in favour, etc." He thrust up both hands and his pipe while he boyishly gazed up at them with a triumphant smile.
"Carried unanimously," he cried. "Now I've two says to your one——"
"I was reckoning it was more than that," Keeko interrupted, laughing.
"Were you? Maybe you're right," Marcel agreed. "Well, say, let's cut the fooling. See here, Keeko," he went on earnestly. "I've got all the pelts you need to my own share. I wouldn't be robbing even an Eskimo, who most folks reckon to rob. As for me, I'm no sort of real trader. I just hunt pelts because it suits me, and I like to hear Lorson Harris squeal when I make him pay my prices. Still, you don't reckon to accept, that way. That being so, how's this? I'm just free as air to hunt where I choose. My outfit's scattered, and each hunts on his own. Well, I've all the catch I need. You can guess that, seeing I've given nine days and nights to trailing this old moose that isn't worth the cost of the powder that shot him up. Cut me out as a trader. Just take me on as guide. I'll join your outfit till it freezes up, and I'll find you the best foxes the North Country ever produced. I'll promise you that three thousand dollars and to spare. It isn't bluff. It's just God's truth. And if you feel like you're sick to death of the sight of what folks who's friendly call my face any old time, why you only need to say things, and I'll hit a trail out of sight at a gait that would leave a caribou flapping its ears with worry. I mean that, every darn word, and the chairman and half this fool committee are voting for it. Well?"
The appeal was irresistible. Keeko would have been less than the woman she was had she further resisted the happy enthusiasm and youthful impulse of this great creature who had been a stranger to her less than an hour ago. There was honesty and confidence in every word he uttered, and there was that simple boyish admiration in his good-looking eyes which made the final unconscious appeal. She yielded, yielded in that spirit which promptly left Marcel her slave for all time.
Her eyes were brimming with a smile that possessed the moisture of tears of thankfulness.
"Guess this committee is unanimous," she said. "There's no argument left in them. But it wants to record the biggest vote of thanks to the chairman that was ever passed—and doesn't know how to express it. We——"
But Marcel was on his feet and holding out his great hands to help the girl to hers. His eyes were wide and shining in a way that must have lit a happy smile in the steady eyes of Uncle Steve, had he been there to witness.
"Where's your camp?" he cried. "I need to start my job right away."
The man's demand was thrilling with the feelings of the moment. Keeko ignored his help. She, too, was on her feet in a moment, and pointing away amongst the shadows of the forest to the west.
"Back on the river," she cried, catching something of the infection of the other's headlong impulse. Then with a glance down at the fallen moose which had been the means of bringing them together, her tone altered to one of almost tenderness. "But this?" she questioned.
Marcel laughed.
"Don't worry with that. I'll come along for the skull and the horns when the wolves have done with it. I've quit big game. I'm out for fox, silver and black. I'm out to break Lorson Harris's bank roll—for you. Come on!"
The youth in Marcel was abundant, it was even headlong. But even so, there was a strong steadying strain of wisdom in him, the wisdom of the Northland, bought at a price that few can afford to pay. It served to hold the balance under the influence of this new adventure.
It was something more than adventure. There was a significance in the extraordinary encounter with Keeko that dimmed to the commonplace every thrill he had ever experienced in the past. It had lifted him at a bound to that pinnacle of manhood, which until the moment when woman presents herself upon youth's stage of life can never be reached.
Every pre-conceived object in life had suddenly been brushed aside by the exhilaration of the moment. The subdued colours of his horizon had been completely overwhelmed by the new radiance. Even Uncle Steve, that precious guide and friend, who had always occupied the central place in his focus, had almost been forgotten.
For Keeko, too, whose youth had been shadowed from the moment understanding had broken through the golden mists of childhood's dream-world, a new meaning to life had been born. She made no attempt to look ahead, and the shadows of the past had no power whatever to rob her of one moment of chaste delight. All she knew, or cared, was that, almost on the instant, the personality of something over six feet of manhood had taken possession of her will. And, with that splendid abandon which generous nature mercifully ordains for youth, she yielded herself to the ecstasy of it.
Keeko was resting upon a fallen tree-trunk. It had been torn up by the roots and flung headlong by the merciless fury of a winter storm. Marcel was standing beside her. The way had been long, but there was no real weariness in either. They had simply paused at their journey's end to survey the great gorge lying at their feet. In the heart of it lay the highway that came up out of the south.
It was a scene of crude immensity which left all life infinitesimal. The barren of it suggested the body of Nature gnawed to the bone, picked clean of the fair flesh with which it is her wont to distract the eyes and senses of man. There lay a frowning, rock-bound chasm at their feet, and deep down in the heart of it a broad, sluggish stream. The two youthful figures were gazing out across the gaping lips at the far-off, distant hills rising up in defence of the secrets of the Northern seas of snow and ice.
For some moments they sat in silence before the might and mystery of that untrodden world. Awe lurked in the eyes of both. It was that awe of the Northland which breeds terror in the weak, and only the strong may survive.
Marcel broke the spell of it. He laughed with a quiet confidence that found no echo in the girl's heart.
"It's pretty darn big," he said, with something almost like contempt in his tone. "But it pays us—toll. I—a man. And you—why, you just a—girl."
It was the pride of youth and strength that spoke. Uncle Steve would not have talked that way—now. Years ago—perhaps. Years ago before his terrible journey across Unaga, when he, too, had defied the very things Marcel now spurned.
But the awe in Keeko's eyes only deepened.
"Maybe you're right," she said doubtfully. "But sometimes it scares me. Scares me to death."
She drew a long breath as she made the admission.
Marcel's quick answer came with a laugh of amusement.
"Yet you come up this river with just three neches," he cried. "You make rapids that would hold me guessing, for all the outfit of Eskimo I carry. You'll beat it back south to your home against a two mile stream with a deadly winter hard on your moccasined heels. I just want to laff. You're scared! Why, get a look right out there, just as far as you can see. I mean where the haze shuts down like a curtain on a forbidden world. There, where there's the dim outline of one big hill propping up the roof of things, standing above all the others. If you took the notion there were pelts there that would worry Lorson Harris to pay for, you'd think no more of making those hills than you worry with the trail over this darn river. That scare notion isn't worth two cents."
The admiration, the obvious delight of Marcel as he derided the girl's plea left a great warmth of pleasure flooding Keeko's eyes.
"You think that?" she cried. Then with a nod: "I'm kind of glad. But you don't know Little One Man—yet. And Snake Foot. And Med'cine Charlie. It isn't me. I've maybe the will. But—I haven't the skill, or the grit. No. My boys were raised on the rapids of the Dubawnt River. If you heard Little One Man I guess you'd know just what that means. As for me, I've learned things from necessity. I had to learn, same as I've to collect those furs Lorson Harris is going to pay for. Oh, I'm not full of a courage like you think. It's will. Will bred of necessity. It's the sort of will that can't reckon the balance of chances. Chances just don't exist. That's all. It's as you say. That ghost of a hill yonder would have to hand me what I need if I couldn't get it nearer home. But I'd be scared—sure. Badly scared, same as I felt watching you waiting on that moose."
Marcel withdrew his gaze from the tremendous view beyond the river. He turned to the scene of the little encampment so far down below. He saw a moving figure by the canoes, beached on the barren foreshore. He beheld the curl of smoke rising from a camp-fire. He knew that a meal was in preparation. It was all as he understood such things, and its interest for him was that it was the home of the girl who had so suddenly taken possession of his life.
"Necessity," he said reflectively. "Guess I'm not just wise to things like older folk. But it seems to me 'necessity' is the thing of all things in life. It sort of seems the key that unlocks the meaning of everything. It sets you chasing pelts to sell for dollars, and it leaves their finding just the one thing worth while. If you got plenty food you don't care two cents if you eat it or not. If you haven't, why the thought of food sets you dreaming beautiful dreams of things you never tasted, and maybe you'd hate anyway if folks handed them to you. If you got a swell bed that's all set ready for you, maybe your fancy sets you sleeping on the hard ground with just a blanket to cover you. If you hadn't, then the thought of that darn blanket would likely set you crazy to grab the other feller's. I come along out every season chasing pelts. Seeing I don't need 'em it leaves me trailing a bull moose that hands me a chance of getting to grips with the business of life an' death. Say, give me 'necessity' all the time. It's the thing that makes men of the folks you can make anything of at all, and, anyway, makes life a thing to grab right up into your arms and hug so as if you never meant to let go. Necessity for you—a girl—is just the thing that beats me. Why, the men folk around you must be all sorts of everyday folk that wouldn't matter a circumstance if the whole darn lot got lost in the fog of their own notions, and were left to hand in their checks hollering for the help they never fancied handing you."
There was hot indignation in the final denunciation. Keeko revelled in his sympathy. She pondered a moment. Then a fresh impulse urged her.
"I was just wondering," she said, her gaze avoiding the figure standing so heedlessly at the brink of the canyon, "I kind of feel I ought to tell you of that necessity. Yet it's hard. As I said, there's secrets, and if you start in to talk free north of 60° you're liable to hand over those secrets that belong to the folk who reckon they've the right to impose them on all those belonging to them. I've no sort of secret of my own. None at all. But I guess my step-father has. And that secret is the reason that's brought him to face the storms and evil spirits of Unaga." She laughed without any lightness. "Will you be content to hear the things I may tell you—without asking me to show you how it is these things are so?" she demanded.
"I don't ask a thing," the man replied promptly. "I don't need to know a thing. You don't get the way I feel. You're a girl. You need furs for trade. Guess that trade means the whole of everything to you, and is liable to make you plenty happy. Well—why, it pleases me to death to help you. That's all."
For a moment Keeko let her wide blue eyes dwell on the man's youthful face.
"That only makes me want to say things more," she retorted, with a slight flush dyeing her soft cheeks. "So I'm just going to say those things right away, and I don't care what secret I hand out doing it. When a man's generosity gets busy it's to limits mostly a long way ahead. Well, when it's that way I don't reckon a woman feels like slamming the door in his face. I've a step-father and a mother. My mother's sick—sick to death. She's all I've got, and all I care for. She's kind of a weak woman who's been up against most of the worry and kicks a world can hand her. And now she's sick to death, and looks like getting that peace that life never seemed to be able to hand her. My step-father's a tough man, and I hate him. Say, you guess that my scare isn't worth two cents. I'm scared of my step-father like nothing else in the world. Oh, I'm not scared that he might raise a club at me. That wouldn't worry me a thing. Guess I could deal with that—right. No. I'm not scared that way. It's something different, and it's come through nothing he's ever done or threatened against—me. No, it's my poor mother. I tell you he's letting her die. He's been letting her die all these years when I wasn't old enough to understand. He wants to be rid of her. He's just a murderer at heart, because he's letting her die through neglect he's figgered out. And my mother isn't only a sick woman dying of the consumption the life he's exposed her to has brought on. She's got a broken heart that he's handed her. But sick as she is, she's wise, and she lies abed thinking not for herself but for me—all the time. And lying there she's worked out a way so I'll be able to get free of my step-father, and play a hand in life on my own when she's gone. It was she taught me to handle a rifle when I'd got hands strong enough to hold it. It was she who set me in the charge of Little One Man years ago, and with Snake Foot and Charlie, to learn the business of pelt hunting. Then when I'd learned all she reckoned I need she lay around and figgered things out further. It was all done without fuss, it was all done in a small way so my step-father shouldn't guess the meaning. She just grew me into a pelt hunter who he thought some day would be useful hunting for him, and he was kind of pleased. Oh, yes, I hunt for him, but for every dollar I make for him there's five for myself. And those five are hidden deep so he'll never find them. I've done this five seasons, and my sick mother reckons this is to be my last. She guesses she'll never see another spring, and she wants to see me with five thousand dollars clear when I get back to home. Then, when she's gone, she wants me to hit the trail quick. She wants me to take Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie with me, and, with my five thousand dollars, she wants me to look around beyond my step-father's reach, and make good in the craft I've learned. With that thought in her mind she guesses to lie easy in the grave she reckons I'll see is made right for her. That's my 'necessity' and it's big—if you could only see into the notions of two women."
Marcel listened without a word of comment. And as he listened his eyes hardened, and the youthful curves about his lips drew tight into fine lines. For all his inexperience of the lives of others the story set a fierce anger raging in his hot, impulsive heart. The unthinkable to him was a man who could so beset a woman.
He nodded.
"And you trade the pelts with Lorson Harris?" he said.
"Sure." Keeko smiled up into his face. It was the shrewd smile of one who approves her own subtlety. "But I divide the catch before I make home. Five-sixths are for me. And I set them aside, and Little One Man helps me cache them. The rest is the catch I hand my step-father. He makes careful tab of it, and then, after a rest, I set out with the dogs over the winter trail for Seal Bay to make trade. Oh, it's easy. We pick up the cache as we go, and trade the whole, and I just hand my step-father the price of the furs he's tabbed."
The girl's smile was infectious.
"It's bright," Marcel cried. "And—and I'm glad." Then his eyes sobered at the thought of his own purpose. "It's easy, too," he went on eagerly. "But it's going to be easier. We'll fool this—cur. We'll fool him as he doesn't dream. Say, you didn't need to tell me, Keeko. There wasn't any need. Still, it shows the trust you feel. And it makes me glad. Now I'll tell you the notion I've fixed. You're going to get a whole heap more than that three-thousand-dollar trade. You surely are. And when you go back you'll be free of—of him, just as far as dollars can make you. But I'm hoping you'll go back feeling better than that. Maybe you'll be able to feel that when your poor sick mother is gone you aren't just alone in the world with Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie. There's another feller just waiting around to hand you all the help you need any old time. And this old tree-trunk you're sitting on will find me all the time. We'll make a cache in it. And each end of the open season I'll get around and open the cache. Come here yourself, or send word by Little One Man, and, just as hard as I can lay paddle to the waters of this old river, I'll beat it to your help for all that's in me. Maybe I'm only a kid chasing pelts, but I'd be mighty thankful to Providence for the chance of making good helping you." He laughed with the full sun of his optimism shining again as he flung out a hand. "Say, shake on it, Keeko! We're partners in an enterprise to beat a devil man. Do you know what that means? You've likely got your notions. I've got the notion that was handed me by the best man in the world and a dark-faced angel woman. It means you can just claim me to the last breath. That's so. It surely is."
Keeko took the hand that was thrust out at her. And in a moment her own was crushed gently between the youth's warm, strong palms. And the pressure of them thrilled the girl as nothing else had ever thrilled her in her life.
Her only answer was to gaze up at him with wide, thankful eyes. She had no words. She felt that any attempt to speak must choke her. So she sat there on the ages-old trunk, with a wild feeling of unaccountable emotion in utter and complete possession of her soul.
Marcel abruptly seated himself beside her on the tree-trunk.
"Say, Keeko," he cried, his seriousness gone, "guess this has been all sorts of a talk, and I've blown a horn that would have worried the angel Gabriel. Well, I've just got to make good—that's all. That being so, there isn't a day to waste. I'll have to hit back to my outfit and collect my 'truck,' which I need to tote along over here. It'll take me all a piece of time, but not an hour longer than my craze to start'll let it. I'll get back in a hell of a hurry. Meanwhile you need to put Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie wise, and see and fix things to start out right away. We're going to hit out north-west to a silver fox country I know of, and when we're through with it Lorson Harris'll start in to drop silver fox prices to the level of grey timber wolf. It makes me feel good—the thought of it."
He sprang up with an energy that suggested the effort it required to tear himself away. And promptly the woman in Keeko asserted itself.
"But you'll eat first?" she said invitingly.
Marcel laughed in frank delight.
"Why, surely," he cried. "I was guessing you might ask me."
Keeko joined in his laugh. They were children at heart, and little more in years.
Marcel and Keeko were standing at the dawn of a new life. The man had looked into a woman's wide, blue eyes. He had gazed upon softly rounded cheeks, as perfect as physical well-being could make them. He had contemplated rich, ripe lips that tempted him well-nigh to distraction. Thus it was that the passionless life of the outworld had no longer power before the stirring of a soul at last awakened from its pristine slumbers.
The meaning of their encounter was no less for Keeko. She was less of the wilderness, perhaps, than Marcel. She had not been so wholly bred to it as he. Her child's eyes had looked upon some measure of civilization, and her mind had gathered a brief training amongst the youth of her own sex. But the result was no less. The grey shadows, which, as far back as she could remember, had overhung her home life seemed suddenly to have been lifted, and the rugged desolation of the Northland had been transformed into a veritable Eden of hope and delight.
It was his new inspiration that lent wings to the feet of Marcel when he hastened to collect his personal outfit. It was under the same inspiration that he flung himself into the task of preparing for the fulfilment of his pledge. And from the moment he joined the girl's outfit on the banks of the river that came up out of the south he became the acknowledged leader, whose will was absolute.
And Keeko's spirit was swift to respond. She displayed a readiness that must have astonished the Indians who were accustomed to implicit acknowledgment of her rule. Or, perhaps, in their savage hearts, they understood something of the change that had been wrought. Here was a great white man, a man whose power and abilities they were quick to recognize and appreciate, whose body was great, and whose eye was clear and commanding. Here was a white girl, fairer than any they had ever known, and whose spirit had served them in a hundred ways. Well? What then? They were all men of maturing years—these Indians. They had had many squaws of their own. Perhaps? Who could tell? It seemed natural that Keeko should choose her man from those of her own colour. And if this man were to be the chosen one they were ready to yield him the same fidelity they would yield to her.
So the night before the morning of departure came round. In three days Marcel had completed every preparation, and all was in readiness for the earliest possible start.
By the time supper was finished the summer daylight showed no sign of giving way to the two-hour night. Marcel had that in his mind which he was determined to do before their well-earned rest beside the camp-fire was taken. And he pointed at the iron-bound cliff which frowned down upon the waters of the river.
"Say, Keeko, I've a notion to set it up before we quit," he said, with a laugh. "Do you feel like passing me a hand?"
Keeko turned from the sluggish waters, black with the reflection of the barren walls of the gorge.
"What are you going to set up?" she questioned like one dragged back from the contemplation of happy dreams.
"Oh, it's just a notion," Marcel laughed, in a boyish, half shamefaced fashion as he lit his pipe with a firebrand. "Will you—come along?"
Keeko was on her feet in a moment. For all the days of labour there was no weariness in her body. Besides——
"Guess you're handing me a mystery," she cried happily. "Seeing I'm a woman I can't just miss it."
So they passed up the rugged foreshore to the foot of the path that cut a perilous ascent to the fringe of the primordial forest above. It was the man who led, and Keeko had no desire that it should be otherwise.
In a few minutes they were standing beside the fallen tree-trunk where Marcel had first gazed down upon the scant encampment over which his sovereignty was now absolute. He drew a deep breath as he gazed again upon that first scene of the new life that had come to him.
"Gee!" he said, "I'm kind of glad."
"Glad?"
Keeko was regarding him amusedly. In those first three days of their life together, in her woman's way, she had been studying him. And that which she had learned filled her with a tender, almost motherly amusement. He was transparent in his simplicity. His singleness of purpose was almost amazing. But under it all she had become aware of a strength and latent force that could only be guessed at. Their talks had been less intimate during the time of their preparations, and she understood that it was the result of the purpose that preoccupied him. Now she speculated as to that which was in his mind. What was the boyish whim that had brought them to the place he had selected as their tryst? What was it that had made him express such gladness?
"I was thinking of that darn old moose," Marcel explained with eyes alight and whimsical.
The girl waited and he went on.
"Say, I guess life's a pretty queer thing," he observed profoundly. "It's a mighty small piece between content and discontent, isn't it? It's so small you'd think anyone of sense could fix it so we couldn't be discontented—ever. Yet we either can't or won't fix it. One leads to good and the other leads to bad—and only time can say how bad. I was getting mighty near discontent. Why? Because I'd got most everything I wanted except the things—I wanted." He laughed. "I was crazy for something, and I didn't quite know what. There was something in me crying out, hollering help, and I couldn't hand that help. Well, I guess there isn't a sound like that going on in me now. I'm just crazy with content."
"Why?"
The girl's question was instant, but, in a moment, she regretted it.
The man's eyes regarded her steadily for a moment, and Keeko hastily turned away. Promptly the echoes of the canyon were awakened by the youth's laughter.
"I couldn't just tell you—easy," he cried. "But I'm about as content as a basking seal. That's all. It's easier telling you how I feel glad thinking of that old moose. Oh, yes, that's easy. I owe him a debt I can't repay easy, seeing he's dead. Still, I feel like doing the best I know to make him feel good about things."
Marcel's mood infected the girl.
"You're—you're not reckoning to start in and—bury him?" she cried.
Marcel shook his head.
"There's only his bones left. The rest of him is chasing around in the bellies of a pack of timber wolves. No. It's his head and his antlers. The wolves have cleaned his head sheer to the bone, as I reckoned they would, and I've toted their leavings right here, and I guess we're going to set it up a monument. Say, Keeko," he went on, with real seriousness, "I couldn't quit this camp here without setting up a monument. Do you know why?"
Keeko sat herself on the old tree-trunk. She made no reply. She simply waited for whatever he had to say.
"It's to commemorate something," he went on quickly, gazing out over the canyon. "I've found something I've been looking for—years. And I just didn't know I was looking for it. Well, that old moose found it for me. So I'm going to set his skull up, with his proud antlers a-top of it, in the best and highest place I can set it, so his old dead eye sockets can just look out over the territory he reigned over till Fate reckoned it was time to set a human queen reigning in his stead. I don't guess he'll worry about things. He'll just feel proud that it wasn't a feller of his own sex ever beat him, and, if I know a thing, he'll feel sort of content and pleased watching over things for us."
The whim of the man, intended to be so light, was full of real feeling. Keeko was torn between tears and laughter. In the end she trusted herself only to a simple question.
"Where are you going to fix him up?" she demanded.
The spell was broken. Marcel promptly became the man of action. He pointed at the gnarled and broken head of a stunted tree growing at the very edge of the canyon, with its battered crest reaching out at a perilous angle over the abyss.
"At the head of that," he said, "so he can watch for your coming up out of the south, and—tell me about it."
"But——!"
A sickening apprehension had seized upon Keeko as she contemplated the overhang of the tree. It was almost at right angles to the face of the cliff. It projected out nearly thirty feet, and below—Her woman's heart could not repress a shudder at the thought of the three hundred feet drop to the rocky shoals in the waters below.
"You don't mean that?" she demanded a little desperately.
Marcel nodded.
"It's plumb easy."
There was no showiness, no bravado. Marcel had no thought to dazzle the girl. His purpose was a simple, boyish act.
He moved off into the forest while Keeko looked after him. From her heart she could have begged him to abandon, or modify his plan. But she refrained, and, somehow, sick at the thought of his purpose, she still realized a thrill at the object of it all. She looked at the roots of the overhanging tree and shuddered. They were partly torn out of the ground.
Marcel returned with his trophy. It was a burden of no mean weight. And Keeko's recognition of the fact only added to her fears.
"How—?" she began. But her question remained unasked.
"It's a cinch," Marcel cried. "Don't worry a thing. See those?" He pointed at two thongs of plaited rawhide, each secured to one of the horns. "Guess I'll tie them into a sling about the old trunk, and move the poor feller's head up as I get out, leaving it hanging below. Then, when I get to the end, I'll just haul it up, and fix it in its place. I've got it all figured."
Keeko nodded.
"I can help you fix the slings," she said eagerly.
"Sure."
The approval had its effect. Keeko set her teeth, and beat down her panic.
The minutes stretched out into the better part of half an hour before the sling was successfully adjusted about the tree-trunk. But at last Marcel stood up from his task and regarded the moose head swinging just beyond the face of the cliff. Then he followed Keeko's gaze, which was in the direction of the upstanding roots of the tree where they had been partially torn from their hold in the ground. It was only for a moment, however. He had no misgivings. Forthwith he divested himself of his pea-jacket and stood ready for the final task.
"What—what can I do now?"
Keeko's voice refused that steadiness which was its wont, and Marcel laughed.
"Do? Why just sit around and act audience while I do the balancing act. Guess that old moose is yearning for his place out there. He didn't figure on the honour, but—he's earned it."
And, despite her fears Keeko smiled at the boyishness of it all.
In a moment her breath was drawn sharply. Marcel was out on the log. He had passed from the cliff edge and was sitting astride of the trunk with his feet and calves gripping tight about it like a horseman on a bucking broncho. His progress was rapid. He lifted the sling and set it out at the full reach of his powerful arms, and then drew himself out after it.
Keeko watched. She watched with wide, apprehensive eyes. It was a fear quite new to her. A vivid imagination possessed her. She saw the great body of this man lying crushed and broken upon the rocks below, and the terror of it left her with nerves and muscles straining. She did not pause to consider the reason of her fears. She knew it, and acknowledged it to herself. In the battle of life which she had been forced to fight a champion had suddenly appeared. A champion such as she had sometimes dreamed of. And with perfect trust and simple faith she had yielded her soul to him.
Foot by foot Marcel moved out, always thrusting his trophy ahead of him. There was a growing vibration in the leaning tree. It laboured under his weight. He pressed on, his whole mind and purpose concentrated. Keeko watched the roots for a sign of the strain. There was none. She glanced out at the distance he yet had to go. And the length of it prompted a warning cry she dared not utter. Farther and farther he passed on. Then came a pause that suggested uncertainty.
Keeko's heart leapt. Was he dizzy? Had he suddenly become aware of the perilous depth below him? Was his nerve——?
The moment passed. He was moving on again. The far off head of the tree was coming nearer, but the vibration had increased with his movements. Would the roots hold? Could they be expected to with the balance so heavily against them? Keeko could look no longer, and, in the agony of the moment, she seized hold of the upstanding roots and clung to them in a ridiculously impotent frenzy of hope that the weight of her own light body might help him.
The vibrations of the tree ceased and Keeko raised her terrified eyes for the meaning.
A wave of partial relief swept over her. Marcel had reached his goal. He had swung up the great moose head to set it in position. It was a breathless moment. She understood that his greatest difficulties had begun, and again she withdrew her gaze. But she clung to the roots of the tree, desperately determined that if the tree fell it should drag her to the disaster waiting upon him.
The suspense seemed endless. But at last there was renewed vibration in the tree. Keeko raised her eyes again. Marcel was moving backwards, and there, right at the broken head of the tree, the fleshless skull with its magnificent antlers was set up in its place.
The girl was still clinging to the upstanding roots when Marcel leapt from his seat on the trunk and stood confronting her. His quick, smiling eyes took in the meaning of the situation at once. He reached out and removed the hands from their task, and, in doing so, he retained them longer than was necessary.
"You guessed you could hold that up if it—fell?" he asked.
And Keeko's reply was full of confusion.
"I didn't think," she stammered. "I didn't know what to do. It was shaking, and I thought—I thought——"
"You didn't want me to get smashed on the rocks below. Well—say—!" Marcel turned abruptly and pointed at the splendid antlers. "There he is," he laughed. "Isn't he a dandy? You could see him miles. And he's feeling good. He just told me that before I quit him. And he said he'd stop right there and see no harm came along your way. So I patted his darn old head, and told him I'd come along each year and see the rawhide was sound, and, if necessary, I'd fix him up again. Well?"