The Way of the Strong. Cullum Ridgwell

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СКАЧАТЬ dreaming her dreams; those dreams which the silent northern world so mysteriously fosters, to cover up its own nakedness and make life possible upon its sterile bosom.

      Later on the shuffling of Si-wash's moccasins scrunching upon the pine-cones made itself heard. He came with a great load of firewood upon his broad back. Leo watched him deposit it and replenish the fire. Then Audie set about preparing a meal, and the dogs were fed from the store of frozen fish, which, by a trick of Fate, had been saved in preference to their precious store of gold. After that, as the twilit woods were swallowed up in the darkness of night, Audie vanished into the tent, and was seen no more.

      The solitude of the tent was preferable to the silence round the fire. She had permitted her lover to dispose of her life as he chose, but she passionately longed to return with him to the north, whatever the dangers to herself and her unborn child. All she cared for was this hard, unyielding man. So long as she had him she could think of and consider those other things which now seemed so small in her life. Without him they were utterly swallowed up by the desolation of all her thoughts and feelings. She wanted him. She wanted this love of hers. Nothing else in the wide world really mattered. He was going out of her life. She knew it. She knew more. He was going out of her life for ever. It was a haunted, despairing woman that sought the warm furs which the man had given up to her use. And the eyes that finally closed in slumber were stained with tears wrung from the very depths of her warm, foolish heart.

      For long hours after the woman's eyes had closed in troubled sleep the two men hugged the warmth of the fire. They had neither blanket nor bed. All that had been saved had been given to the woman. The fire stood between them and the bitter cold of the northern night, and beside it was their couch of rotting pine-cones. But they were hardened to the deadly winter, and, so long as they could keep the frost out of their flesh, nothing much mattered.

      They smoked in silence, each man busy with his own thoughts; and it was nearly midnight when Si-wash gave his friend the benefit of his profound cogitations.

      He had just replenished the fire, and finally drawn up the broken sled as an added protection against the bitter breath of the night breezes. Then he returned to his place and squatted upon his haunches, hugging his knees with his clasped hands, while he puffed at the reeking black clay pipe which, in the manner of his race, protruded from the center of his mouth.

      "I mak 'em long piece way. No plenty wood. I mak 'em mile – two mile." Si-wash held up two fingers.

      Leo looked up quickly at this breaking of the silence.

      "Sure," he said. "Wood scarce."

      Si-wash nodded.

      "Plenty scarce." Then after a long pause: "Other man find him. Burn 'em all up."

      Leo eyed his companion. Then he grinned unpleasantly.

      "Guess there's only one damn-fool outfit on this trail – hereabouts – "

      The Indian went on smoking, and nearly a minute passed before he shot a quick, sidelong glance at his white friend.

      "No. Two," he said; and the inevitable two fingers were thrust up again before Leo's eyes.

      It was the white man's turn to pause before replying now.

      "Two?" he said, half incredulously.

      The Indian nodded, and again held up two fingers.

      "How d'you know?" Leo's question came sharply.

      "Smoke," returned the Indian; and his one hand described a series of circles upwards.

      "You mean – a camp fire? Where?"

      Leo was more than interested.

      "So. Back there. Big piece. One – two – three mile." Si-wash held up three fingers in deliberate succession.

      Leo's interest seemed to suddenly die out. He had no further questions to ask; and, a moment later, he leaned forward and knocked the ashes from his pipe. Then he rose and moved over to the sled. Here he sat down and supported his back against an iron strut, and stretched his legs out beside the fire. In a few moments he was asleep.

      Si-wash remained where he was. He made no preparations for sleep; but he slept, every now and then waking up to replenish the fire. And so the long hours crept on toward the gray dawn.

      Daylight had come. Leo yawned and stretched his cramped limbs. Si-wash was still beside the fire. He had melted a pot of snow, the only pot that had been saved from wreck on the hillside. He was making tea, boiling it, as is the fashion of all Indians. The smell of it pervaded the camp and reminded Leo that he was hungry.

      In half an hour breakfast was over, and Si-wash proceeded with his work on the sled. Audie waited for the commands of her lover. But none were forthcoming. For a long time Leo sat lost in thought, watching the skillful fingers of the Indian at his work, while the fierce sled dogs fought and played around in their untamed, savage way.

      The man's expression was quite inscrutable. He was thinking neither of the Indian nor his work. His mind was on other matters, matters which set him puzzling and speculating.

      At last he rose and picked up the rawhide rope, which was lying beside the diminished wood pile. He stood for a moment contemplating it. Then he absently stretched it out on his powerful hands, and finally coiled it up.

      "Guess I'll climb around and gather wood. So long, Audie," he said briefly.

      The next moment the girl's longing eyes were watching his retreating figure as the gray distance swallowed it up.

      For a long time she stood thus. Then she started and looked around. It was the Indian's voice that had startled her.

      "Him heap good feller. Him no come back bimeby."

      The girl's eyes widened with sudden fear.

      "What do you mean?" she demanded, with a clutching at her heart.

      The Indian's features relaxed into something approaching a smile.

      "Him crazy, sure!"

      CHAPTER IV

      LEO

      Leo gazed about him as he left the woodland shadows behind. All sign of the recent blizzard had passed. The world was white, cold, and bathed in the gleaming sunlight of the northern winter. The air was warmer than it had been for days, an unusual phenomenon after such a storm.

      For a moment his unexpressive eyes lifted to the shining sky. There was nothing to suggest anything in the nature of one of those rapid changes of weather so much a feature of winter in this region, and the prospect seemed to satisfy him. From the sky his glance drifted to the jagged horizon, and here it searched closely in every direction. For a long time he stood studying every rise and depression in the glacial ocean of hills and valleys; then, slowly, his interest began to wane.

      Now a definite disappointment became apparent in the frown that depressed his strong brows. He moved out from the edge of the woods and skirted them until a fresh vista of bald, snow-clad hills presented themselves to his searching eyes. For a time his scrutiny lacked something of its original interest. Then, quite suddenly, it became fixed on one spot, a deep depression, shadowed, and definitely marked, an almost black patch in the white setting of the surrounding world.

      In a moment all his interest had revived, and he concentrated all his efforts to read the meaning of that which СКАЧАТЬ