Chapter 7

"As soon as we can stir up a meal. How would pancakes taste?"

"Glorious! I'll cook breakfast myself."

"Not breakfast--lunch," he corrected. "It's already about noon. But it would be very nice if you'd do the cooking while I cut the night's fuel. You know how--dilute a little canned milk, and a little baking powder, stir in your flour--and it's wheat mixed with rye, and bully flour for flapjacks--and fry 'em thick. Set water to boil and we'll have coffee, too."

They went to their respective tasks. And the pancakes and coffee, when at last they were steaming on the little, crude board-table, were really a very creditable effort. They were thick and rich as befits wilderness flapjacks, but covered with syrup they slid easily down the throat. Bill consumed three of them, full skillet size, and smacked his lips over the coffee. Virginia managed two herself.

He helped her wash the scanty dishes, then prepared for the hunt. "Do you want to come?" he asked. "It's a cool, raw day. You'll be more comfortable here."

"Do you think I'd stay here?" she demanded.

She didn't attempt to analyze her feelings. She only knew that this cabin, lost in the winter forest, would be a bleak and unhappy place to endure alone. The storm and the snow-swept marshes, with Bill beside her, were infinitely preferable to the haunting fear and loneliness of solitude. The change in her attitude toward him had been complete.

Dressing warmly, they ventured out into the snowy wastes. The storm had neither heightened nor decreased. The snow still sifted down steadily, with a relentlessness that was someway dreadful to the spirit. The drifts were about their knees by now; and the mere effort of walking was a serious business. The winter silence lay deep over the wilderness.

It was a curious thing not to hear the rustle of a branch, the crack of a twig; only the muffled sound of their footsteps in the snow. Bill walked in front, breaking trail. He carried the ancient rifle ready in his hands.

The truth was that Bill did not wish to overlook any possible chance for game. Each hour traveling was more difficult, the snow encroached higher, and soon he could not hunt at all without snowshoes. It was not good for their spirits or their bodies to try to live without meat in the long snowshoe-making process. This was no realm for vegetarians. The readily assimilated animal flesh was essential to keep their tissues strong.

Fortune had not been particularly kind so far on this trip--at least from Virginia's point of view--but he did earnestly hope that they might run into game at once. Later the moose would go to their winter feeding grounds, far down the heights. Every day they hunted, their chance of procuring meat was less.

He led her over the ridge to the marshy shores of Gray Lake,--a dismal body of water over which the waterfowl circled endlessly and the loons shrieked their maniacal cries. He noticed, with some apprehension, that many sea birds had taken to the lake for refuge,--gulls and their fellows. This fact meant to the woodsman that great storms were raging at sea, and they themselves would soon feel the lash of them. They waited in the shadow of the spruce.

"Don't make any needless motions," he cautioned, "and don't speak aloud. They've got eyes and ears like hawks."

It was not easy to stand still, in the snow and the cold, waiting for game to appear. Virginia was uncomfortable within half an hour, shivering and tired. In an hour the cold had gripped her; her hands were lifeless, her toes ached. Yet she stood motionless, uncomplaining.

It was a long wait that they had beside the lake. The short, snow-darkened afternoon had not much longer to last. Bill began to be discouraged; he knew that for the girl's sake he must leave his watch. He waited a few minutes more.

Then the girl felt his hand on her arm. "Be still," he whispered. "Here he comes."

They were both staring in the same directions, but at first Virginia could not see the game. Her eyes were not yet trained to these wintry forests. It was a strange fact, however, that the announcement was like a hot stimulant in her blood. The sense of cold and fatigue left her in an instant. And soon she made out a black form on the far side of the lake.

"He's coming toward us," the man whispered.

Although she had never seen such an animal before, at once she recognized its kind. The spreading horns, the great frame, the long, grotesque nose belonged only to the moose,--the greatest of American wild animals. Her blood began to race through her veins.

The animal was still out of range, but the distance between them rapidly shortened. He was following the lake shore, tossing his horns in arrogance. Once he paused and gazed a long time straight toward them, legs braced and head lifted; but evidently reassured he ventured on. Now he was within three hundred yards.

"Why don't you shoot?" the girl whispered.

"I'm afraid to trust this old gun at that range. I could get him with my thirty-five. Now don't make a motion--or a sound."

Now the creature was near enough so that she could receive some idea of his size and power. She knew something of the quagmires such as lay on the lake shore. She had passed some of them on the journey. But the bull moose took them with an ease and a composure that was thrilling to see. Where a strong horse would have floundered at the first step, he stretched out his hind quarters, and, striking with his long, powerful front legs, pulled through. Then she was aware that Bill was aiming.

At the roar of the rifle she cried out in excitement. The old bull had traversed the marches for the last time: he had fought the last fight with his fellow bulls in the rutting season. He rocked down easily, and Bill's racing fingers ejected the shell and threw another into the barrel, ready to fire again if need be. But no second bullet was required. The man's aim had been straight and true, and the bullet had pierced his heart.

The two of them danced and shouted in the snow. And Virginia did not stop to think that the stress of the moment had swept her back a thousand--thousand years, and that her joy was simply the rapture of the cave woman, mad with blood lust, beside her mate.

X

The shoulder of a bull moose was never a load for a weak back. The piece of meat weighed nearly one hundred pounds and was of awkward shape to carry. Bill, secure in his strength, would never have attempted it except for the fact that after one small ridge was climbed, the way was downhill clear to the cabin.

He skinned out the quarter with great care; then, stooping, worked it on his back. Virginia took his gun and led the way back over their snow trail.

By resting often, they soon made the hilltop. From thence on they dragged the meat in the immaculate snow. Twilight had fallen again when they made the cabin.

Already Virginia thought of it as home. She returned to it with a thrill in her veins and a joy in her heart. She was tired out and cold; this humble log hut meant shelter from the storm and warmth and food. Bill hung the meat; then with his knife cut off thick steaks for their supper. In a few moments their fire was cracking.

Bill showed her how to broil the steak in its own fat, and he cooked hot biscuits and macaroni to go with it. No meal of her life had ever given her greater pleasure. They made their plans for the morrow; first to construct a crude sled and then to bring in the remainder of the meat. "If the wolves don't claim it to-night," Bill added, as he lighted his pipe.

"It's strange that I don't want to smoke myself," the girl told him.

"You? Why should you?"

"I smoke at home. I mean I did. It's getting to be the thing to do among the girls I know. Someway, the thought of it doesn't seem interesting any more."

"Did you--really enjoy it then? If you did, I'll split my store with you. You've got as much right to it as I." The man spoke rather heavily.

"I didn't think I did enjoy it. I did it--I suppose because it seemed sporting. It never made me feel peaceful--only nervous. I don't believe tobacco is a temperamental need with women as it is with some men--otherwise it wouldn't have taken so many centuries to establish the custom. It would only--seem silly, up here."

He had an impression that she was speaking very softly. The quality of absolute and omnipresent silence had passed from the wilderness. There was a low stir, a faint murmur that at first was so far off and vague that neither of them could name it.

But slowly the sound grew. The tree tops, silent before with snow, gave utterance; the thickets cracked, stirred, and moved as if some dread spirit were coming to life within them. The candle flickered. A low moan reached them from the chimney. Bill strode to the door and threw it wide.

He did not have to peer out into that unfathomable darkness to know the enemy that was at his gates. It spoke in a sudden fury, and the snow flurries swept past, like strange and wandering spirits, in the dim candle light. No longer the flakes drifted easily and silently down. They seemed to be coming from all directions, whirling, eddying, borne swiftly through the night and hurled into drifts. And a dread voice spoke across the snow.

"The north wind," Bill said simply.

Virginia's eyes grew wide. She sensed the awe and the dread in his tones; even she, fresh from cities, knew that this foe was not to be despised. She felt the sharp pinch of the cold as the heat escaped through the open door. The temperature was falling steadily; already it was far below freezing. Bill shut the door and walked back to her.

"What does it mean?" she asked breathlessly.

"Winter. The northern winter. I've seen it break too many times. Perhaps we can drown out the sound of it--with music."

He walked toward the battered instrument. Her heart was cold within her, and she nodded eagerly. "Yes--a little ragtime. It will be frightfully loud in the cabin, but it's better than the sound of the storm."

She didn't dream that this wilderness man would choose any other kind of music than ragtime. She was but new to the North, otherwise she would have made no such mistake. Superficiality was no part of these northern men. They knew life in the raw, the travail of existence, the pinch of cold and the fury of the storm; and the music that they felt in their hearts was never the light-hearted dance music of the South. Music is the articulation of the soul, and the souls of these men were darkened and sad. It could not be otherwise, sons of the wilderness as they were.

The pack song, on the hilltop in the winter moon, was never a melody of laughter. Rather it was the song of life itself, life in the raw, and the sadness and pain and the hopeless war of existence find their echo in the wailing notes. None of the wilderness voices were joyous. When Bill had chosen his records he took those that answered his own mood and expressed his own being.

Not all of them were sad music, in the strictest sense. But they were all intense, poignant and tremulous with the deepest longings of the human soul.

"I haven't any ragtime," the man explained humbly. "I could only bring up a few records, and so I took just the ones I liked best. They're simple things--I'm sorry I haven't any more."

She looked at this man with growing wonder. Of course he would like the simple things. No man of her acquaintance had ever possessed truer standards: no sophistication or cultural growth such as she herself had know could have given him a truer gentility. What was this thing that men could learn in the woods and in the North that gave them such poise, such standards, and brought out such qualities of manhood? Yet she knew that the forests did not treat all men alike. Those of intrinsic virtue were made better, their strength was supplemented by the strength of the wilderness itself, but the weaklings perished quickly. This was not a land for soft men, for the weak and the cowardly and the vicious. The wild soon found them out, harried them by storms and broke their hearts and their spirits, and kept from them its gracious secrets. Perhaps in this latter thing lay the explanation. It seemed to her that Bill was always straining, listening for the faintest, whispered voices of the forest about him. He was always watching, always studying--his soul and his heart open--and Nature poured forth upon him her incalculable rewards.

He put on a record, closed the doors of the instrument tight to muffle the sound, and set the needle. She recognized the melody at once. It was Drdla's "Souvenir"--and the first notes seemed to sweep her into infinity.

It was a beautiful, haunting thing, sweet as love, warm as a maiden's heart, tender as motherhood; and all at once Virginia was aware of a heart-stirring and incredible contrast. The melody did not drown out the sound of the storm. It rose above it, infinitely sweet and entreating, and all the time the wild strains of the storm outside made a strange and dreadful background. Yet the two songs mingled with such harmony as only old masters, devotees to music, can sometimes hear in their inmost souls but never express in notes.

She felt the tears start in her eyes. Her cheeks flamed. Her heart raced and thrilled. For all the exquisite beauty of the song, a vague dread and an incomprehensible fear seemed to come upon her. For all the stir and impulse of the melody, a strange but exquisite sadness engulfed her spirit. In that single instant the North drew aside its curtains of mystery and showed her its secret altar. For a breath at least she knew its soul,--its travail, its dreadful beauty, its infinite sadness, its merciless strength.

In her time Virginia had now and then known the fear of Death. Two nights previous, as the waters had engulfed her, she had known it very well. But never before had she known fear of life. That's what it was--fear of _life_--life that could only cost and could not pay, that could take and could not give, that could pain but could not heal. She knew now the dreadful persecution of the elements, cold and storm and the snow fields stretching ever from range to range. She knew the fear of hunger, of struggle to break the spirit and rend the body, of disaster that could not be turned aside, of cruel and immutable destiny. She knew now why the waterfowl had circled all day so restlessly: they too had known the age-old fear of the northern winter. They had sensed, in secret ways, the swift approach of the storm.

Winter was at hand. It would lock the streams and sweep the land with snow, the sun would grow feeble in the sky, and the spirit of Cold would descend with its age-old terrors. And the creepy fear, the haunting terror known to all northern creatures, man or beast, crept into her like a subtle poison.

It was a moment of enchantment. The music rose high, fell in soaring leaps, trembled in infinite appeal, and slowly died away. Outside the storm increased in fury. The wind sobbed over the cabin roof, the trees complained, the snow beat against the window pane. And still the spell lingered. Her lustrous eyes gazed out through the darkened pane, but her thoughts carried far beyond it.

And it was well for her peace of mind that she did not glance at Bill. The music had moved him too: besides the fear of the North he had been torn by even a deeper emotion, and for the instant it was written all to clearly upon his rugged features. He was watching the girl's face, his eyes yearning and wistful as no human being had ever seen them.

The soaring notes, with the dreadful accompaniment of the storm, had brought home a truth to him that for days on the trail he had tried to deny. "I love you, Virginia," cried the inaudible voice of his soul. "Oh, Virginia--I love you, I love you."

XI

It was one of Bill Bronson's basic creeds to look his situations squarely in the face. It was part of the training of the wilderness, and up till now he had always abided by it. But for the past few days he had found himself trying to look aside. He had tried to avoid and deny a truth that ever grew clearer and more manifest,--his love for Virginia.

He had told himself he wouldn't give his love to her. He would hold back, at least. He had reminded himself of the bridgeless gap that separated them, that they were of different spheres and that it only meant tragedy, stark and deep, for him to let himself go. He had fought with himself, had tried to shut his eyes to her beauty and his heart to her appeal. But there was no use of trying further. In the stress and passion of the melody he had found out the truth.

And this was no moment's passion,--the love that he had for her. Bill was not given to fluency of emotion. He was a northern man, intense as fire but slow to emotional response. He had known the great discipline of the forest; he was not one to lose himself in infatuation or sentimentality. He only knew that he loved her, and no event of life could make him change.

He had had dreams, this man; but they were never so concrete, so fond as these dreams that swept him now. In the soft candlelight the girl's beauty moved him and glorified him, the very fact of her presence thrilled him to the depths, the wistfulness and appeal in her face seemed to burn him like fire. This northern land was never the home of weak or half-felt emotions. The fine shades and subtle gradations of feelings were unknown to the northern people, but they had full knowledge of the primordial passions. They could hate as the she-wolf hates the foe that menaces her cubs, and they could love to the moment of death. He knew that whatever fate life had in store for him it could not change his attitude toward her. She would leave the North and go back to her own people, and still he would be true.

Even in the first instant he knew enough not to hope. They would have their northern adventure together, and then she would leave him to his snows and his trackless forests. She would go to her own land, a place of mirth and joy and warmth, to leave him brooding and silent in his waste places. He knew that all his days this same dream would be before his eyes, this wistful-eyed, tender girl, this lovely flower of the South. Nothing could change him. The years would come and go--spring and summer flowering in the forest, dancing once and tripping on to a softer, gentler land; fall would touch the shrubs with color, whisk off the golden leaves of the quivering aspen, and speed way; and winter, drear and cheerless, would shroud the land in snow--and find his love unswerving. The forest folk would mate in fall, the caribou calves would open their wondering eyes in spring, the moose would bathe and wallow in the lakes in summer, and in winter the venerable grizzly would seek his lair, and still his dreams, in his lonely cabin, would be unchanged. His love would never lessen or increase. He had held none of it back; no more could be given or taken away. He had given his all.

But if he couldn't keep this knowledge from himself, at least he could hold it from the girl. It would only bring her unhappiness. It would destroy the feeling of comradeship for him that he had begun to observe in her. It would put an insurmountable wall between them. Besides, he didn't believe that she could understand. Perhaps it would only offend her,--that this son of the forests should give her his love. She had never dealt with men of his breed before, and she had no inkling of the smoldering, devouring fires within the man. He would not invite her pity and her distrust by letting her know.

Strangest of all, he felt no bitterness or resentment. This development was only a fitting part of the tragedy of his life: first his father's murder, his dreams that had never come true, his lost boyhood, his exile in the waste places, and now the lonely years that stretched before him with nothing to atone or redeem. He knew that there could be no other woman in his life. It was well enough for the men of cities to give and take back their love; for them it was only wisdom and good sense, but such a course was impossible to such sons of the forest as he. Life gives but one dream to the forest folk, and they follow it till they die. He knew that the yearning in his heart and the void in his life could never be filled.

Yet he didn't rail at fate. He had learned what fate could do to him, and he had learned to take its blows with a strange fatalism and composure. Besides, would he not have the joy of her presence for many days to come? Their adventure had just begun: weeks would pass before she could go home. In those days he could serve her, toil for her, devote himself wholly to her happiness. He could see her face and know her beauty, and it was all worth the price he paid. For life in the North is life in its simplest phases; and the northern men have had a chance to learn that strangest truth of all,--that he who counts the cost of his hour of pleasure shall be crushed in the jaws of Destiny, and that a day of joy may be worth, in the immutable balance of being, a whole life of sorrow.

Virginia had no suspicion of his thoughts. She was still enthralled by the after-image of the music, and her own thoughts were soaring far away. But soon the noise of the storm began to force itself into her consciousness. It caused her to consider her own prospects for the night.

Vaguely she knew that this night was different from the others. The two previous nights she had been ill and half-unconscious: her very helplessness appealed to Bill's chivalry. To-night she stood on her own feet. Matters were down to a normal basis again, and for the first time she began to experience a certain embarrassment in her position. She was suddenly face to face with the fact that the night stretched before her,--and she in a snowswept cabin in the full power of a strange man. She felt more than a little uneasy.

Already she was tired and longed to go to sleep, but she was afraid to speak her wish. As the silence of the cabin deepened, and the noise of the storm grew louder--blustering at the roof, shaking the door, and beating on the window pane--her uneasiness gave way to stark fear.

But all at once she looked up to find Bill's eyes upon her, full of sympathy and understanding. "You'll want to turn in now," he told her. "You take the bunk again, of course--I'll sleep on the floor. I'm comfortable there--I could sleep on rocks if need be."

"Can't you get some fir boughs--to-morrow?" The girl spoke nervously.

"They'd be in the way, but maybe I can arrange it. And now I've got to fix your boidoir."

He took one of the boxes that served as a chair and stood it up on the floor, just in front of her bunk. Then, holding one of the blankets in his arm and a few nails in his hand, he climbed upon the box. She understood in an instant. He was curtaining off the entire end of the cabin where Virginia slept.

The girl's relief showed in her face. Her eyes lighted, her apprehension was largely dispelled. She wasn't blind to his thoughtfulness, his quick sympathy; and she felt deeply and speechlessly grateful. And she was also vaguely touched with wonder.

"You can go in there now," he told her. "But there's one thing--I want to show you--before you turn in."

"Yes?"

"I want to show you this little pistol." He took a light arm of blue steel from his belt,--the small-calibered and automatic weapon with which he had gilled the grouse. "It's only a twenty-two," Bill went on, "but it shoots a long cartridge, and it shoots ten of 'em, fast as you pull the trigger. You could kill a caribou with it, if you hit him right."

"Yes?" And she wondered at this curious interlude in their moment of parting.