THE FAREWELL
A burden of grey hung depressingly over the world. A bleak north wind
came down the river gorge. The sun's power had weakened before the
advance of the Arctic night. Beaten, dismayed, it lived only just above
the skyline.
The sightless sockets of the old moose stared wide-eyed down the river.
They were fulfilling the task that had been set them. The howling of the
gale, the polar cold, the blinding storm of snow; these things would
have no power to turn them from their vigil. The wide-antlered,
bleaching skull was the guardian of the tryst, and its sole concern was
its watch and ward.
The chill and cheerlessness of it all was reaching at the hearts of the
boy and girl who were at the moment of parting. Marcel was silently
whittling a stout twig of tamarack, whose toughness threatened to dull
the keen edge of his sheath-knife. Keeko was standing a few feet from
him, within a yard or so of the precipice which dropped sheer to the
waters below. Her eyes were following the direction of the gaze of the
old moose, and the picture her mind was dwelling upon was far removed
from what she beheld.
It was of the long, lonesome winter, with her mother dying by inches,
while she, herself, spent her days in the avoidance of her step-father
whom she had learned to fear as well as to hate. Marcel had no such
bitterness to look out upon. But he was none the less weighted down that
the farewell must be spoken.
The hot blood of youth was surging through his veins. Manhood's reckless
passion was beating in heart and brain. A desperate desire to yield to
the call of Nature was urging him mercilessly. Yet, through it all, he
knew that the farewell must be said now, for both their sakes, for the
sake of honour, of loyalty, for the sake of Love itself.
Oh, yes. He knew how easy it would be to sweep along on the tide of
passion. But he loved Keeko. Loved her with all his simple heart and
body, and his love was bound up with an honour which he had no power to
outrage.
Time and again in the madness of the moment he thought to urge Keeko to
abandon all and return with him to the home which he knew would hold
nothing but welcome for her. He thought of all that happiness which
might be hers in the kindly associations of Uncle Steve and An-ina. He
thought of all the wretchednesses of soul he would save her from, the
dread of that step-father, whom she had declared to be a murderer at
heart. Then he remembered the dying mother whose one care was the child
of her heart, and he realized that his own desire must not be. The
farewell must be taken now.
Once he thought to continue the journey with her to help her complete
her final task of trading her pelts. But he remembered in time, and
thrust temptation from him. There was An-ina demanding his protection in
Uncle Steve's absence during the winter. There was his pledge to that
man who never questioned his given word.
Looking up his ardent gaze rested on the figure poised so near the brink
of the gorge.
"Keeko!"
His voice was deep with feeling. Its tone was imperative, too.
"Yes--Marcel?"
Keeko's reply was low-voiced and almost humble. She felt his gaze even
before he spoke. Had she not intercepted it a hundred times in their
work together? Oh, yes. She knew it. And that which she had seen, and
read, had been the answer she most desired to all the yearnings of her
woman's heart. Now she knew that the moment she most dreaded had come at
last. And she wondered and feared as she had never feared in her life
before.
Marcel drove his knife deeply in a diagonal cut into the hard wood of
the tamarack.
"You've a month to the freeze up," he said. "It's the limit you need.
I've figgered it. I've talked it out with Little One Man."
"Yes. I can make home in a month."
Keeko drew a sharp breath. She could make home. Never in her life had
she felt as she felt now. Home!
Marcel ripped his knife in an opposite diagonal on the reverse of the
wood. The force he applied seemed almost vicious.
"Are--you glad?"
"I--s'pose so."
"You--s'pose so? Of course you are. There's your poor sick mother."
"Yes."
The girl's reply was almost inaudible. Marcel wrenched the wood in half
with his powerful hands. It snapped, and he examined the pronged ends
critically.
With an effort Keeko bestirred herself from her despondency.
"Yes," she cried desperately. "I must get home. I want to. I love my
mother, Marcel. She's suffered. Oh, how she suffers. Yet through it all
she thinks only of me. She schemes and hopes only for me. Maybe I can't
hope to save her life, but I can tell her the things that'll let her die
almost happy. It's the best I can do, and I--I'm glad to do it."
Marcel nodded over his two pieces of wood.
"That's how I feel about it," he said. "It seems to me we haven't any
sort of right to set up the things that 'ud please us against the
happiness of those who've been good to us. I'd thought of beating down
this river with you, to see things through for you. Then I remembered a
sort of mother woman who looks to me for the help of a son. Then I
thought of asking you to cut the home with a step-father, who's a
murderer at heart, and come along where you'd find only love and
friendship. Then I remembered your sick mother. I'm guessing the self of
things is mighty big, but there's something bigger. Still--Say, come and
sit right here!"
He was smiling. But his eyes were full of a deep tenderness.
Keeko obeyed. She had no desire to deny him. He seemed to have robbed
her of all will of her own. His will had become wholly her desire. She
took her seat on the tree-trunk, just removed from his side by a rift in
the great log which was hidden under a growth of lichen.
Marcel's eyes sought hers. But she had turned from him. She was gazing
out at the moose head set up over the gorge.
"How am I to hear if you're needing my help?" he demanded. "I can't make
here till the first break of spring. There's just one hell of a long
winter before that."
Marcel was endeavouring to smother his feeling. Keeko shook her head.
Had she not thought and thought over this very thing?
"I won't need help," she said. "Not now. You've helped me through my
only worry. If mother lives, things'll just go on the same. If--she
doesn't? She and I--we got it fixed. I hit right out for myself as we've
planned it--that's all."
But the hot blood had mounted to Marcel's head. "It's not!" he cried
with startling force. "D'you think you're going out of my life that way?
You?" Suddenly he broke into a laugh that echoed down the gorge. He
pointed out at the moose head. "Look at the old feller," he cried. "He's
winking his old eyes and flapping the comic ears he hasn't got. I swear
if you could only hear it he's busting his sides laffing at the joke of
you reckoning to cut yourself out of my life that way. No, sir! I'm
coming right along here at the first break of spring, and if I don't
find you around, or a sign from you, I'm beating up this river to look
for you, if I have to chase it sheer up to its source. Say, you can't
hide yourself in a corner of this darnation territory I won't find you
in. And I guess I'm just as obstinate as a she-wolf chasing a feed of
human meat. It can't be done, Keeko. Not now. I tell you it can't be
done."
The man's force was no less for all his smiling eyes. And Keeko made no
pretence.
"But why?" she cried, with a gesture of her hands that made him desire
to imprison them. "Why should you worry? You've helped me to the things
that'll leave me free of--everything. I haven't a right. I haven't any
sort of right to take you from your folks, and from those things it's
your work to do for them. Besides, who said I figgered to cut myself out
of your life?" She smiled up into his eyes with an almost child-like
confidence. "I don't want to. I--I hadn't a thought that way. Say, if I
thought I'd never see you again I'd feel like nothing in the world ever
could matter. The thing I'm guessing to make plain is when we quit here
you don't need to worry a thing. I'll get through, and next spring I'll
come right along up and tell you how I'm fixed."
Marcel sat up, and, reaching out, caught and imprisoned the hands he
desired.
"You'll do that?" he cried, while he drew her round so that she faced
him. "Sure? Sure you mean that? You'll come right along up here with the
break of winter, and we'll----"
"I certainly will."
Keeko's youth was no less than Marcel's. Her eyes were without any
shyness. She looked into his fearlessly, and read without shame all that
they expressed. She was glad. Her heart was full of a delight of which
even parting could not rob her. The memory of that which she beheld now
would be hers during the long, drear months of winter, a sheet anchor of
hope, of joy, something to tell her always that, whatever might chance,
life still held for her a priceless treasure of which it could never
wholly rob her.
Marcel released her hands lingeringly.
"Here," he cried holding up the pieces of tamarack he had cut. "These
darned bits of wood." Then he raised the lichen, which had been
carefully loosened, and revealed the gaping rift in the tree-trunk
beneath it. "Our cache," he added. "Say, maybe when spring breaks
there's things might make it so you can't get along up here. You see,
it's a chance. You can't just say. Maybe I'm scared. Anyway, I got a
notion you might need me in a hurry. I'm scared for you. That's it. I'm
scared for you. Well? You've got your boys. Either of 'em could make
this place in the winter. Here, grab this little old stick. I'll keep
the other. It's just a token. I've set your name on it. Well, send it
along up, and cache it in this cache, and when I come along and find it
here, instead of you, at the break of spring, I'll know you're held up
and need me, and you can gamble your big white soul I'll beat the trail
to your help like a cyclone in a hurry. Oh, I know. You'll guess nothing
can happen that way. But it's just my notion, and you're going to kind
of humour me. Git that? When I find that token set in this cache I'll
make up the river just as hard as hell'll let me."
In spite of her confidence Keeko accepted the stick the boy passed to
her and sat gazing at it. It was then that she discovered the lettering
that had been cut on it. There were just two words in letters crudely
formed: "LITTLE KEEKO."
For a while her eyes dwelt upon them absorbing all the tenderness they
conveyed. Then, in a moment, all the truth in her, the woman, roused
into active purpose. She handed it back to him.
"You've given me the wrong token," she said, with a laugh. "I need one
with your name on it."
She held out her hand and Marcel passed her the other half of the stick.
It was inscribed with the single word: "MARCEL." Instantly the girl rose
from her seat and moved away.
"We best get back to camp," she said.
It was her woman's defence. Another few moments and Keeko knew she would
have been powerless before her own passionate emotion.
She led the way to the head of the path which went down to the little
camp on the foreshore below.
* * * * *
Marcel was standing beside the tree which had become the centre of all
things for him. The grey night sky had remained. It had only deepened
its threat with the dawn. But the reality of the moment was nothing to
the desolate winter that had settled upon his heart.
The farewell lay behind him. He was alone, desperately alone, in a world
where he had never realized loneliness before. And there, far out down
on the broad bosom of the river, were the canoes carrying with them his
every hope, his every desire.
The bitterness, the depression robbed him of all the buoyant manhood
that was his. Keeko had gone. Keeko. Keeko with her wonderful eyes, and
the grace and symmetry of a youthful goddess. Yes, she had gone, and
between them now lay that long winter night with all its manifold
chances of disaster. With the break of spring he might look for her
coming again. Yes, he might look for it. But would she come? He
wondered. And again and again he cursed himself that he had listened to
other than the promptings of his desire.
The canoes reached the bend of the river driven by paddles in hands that
were wonderfully skilled. They were about to pass out of view behind the
grey wall of stone which lined the waterway. The figure of the girl in
the prow of the hindmost boat was blurred and indistinct. Marcel had
eyes for nothing else. He raised his fur cap and waved it slowly to and
fro. And as he waved he thought he detected a similar movement in the
boat. He could not be sure at the distance. But he believed. He hoped it
was so. He wanted it to be.
He turned away. The boats had passed the grey barrier. There was nothing
left but to set out to rejoin his outfit, and return----
His wandering gaze had fallen on the tree-trunk which held such happy
memories for him. He was gazing upon the lichen covering their cache.
The lichen was sadly, recklessly disturbed. He knew he had not left it
in that condition. He was far too experienced, too old in the craft of
the trail to leave a cache in such a state. He stepped over to it
hurriedly, and raised the covering Nature had set. He peered down into
the deep pocket beneath it.
The next moment a sharp exclamation broke from him. He plunged a hand
into the pocket and drew out the token he had handed to Keeko
over-night.
He stared at it. It was her demand for his help. She had placed it
there--when? It must have been during the night. Why? What did she mean?
Did she desire him to follow--now?
He turned it about in his big fingers, and in a moment discovered fresh
characters cut roughly into the wood. It was a word prefixing the name
which he had set there: "MY MARCEL."
"My Marcel!"
He was not dreaming. No--no! The little added word was there cut in by a
hopelessly unskilled hand. But it was there, as plain as intent could
make it. "My Marcel." It told him all--all that a man desires to know
when a woman bares her heart to him. It was Keeko's farewell message
that he was not intended to discover till the break of winter. It was
her summons to him, not for mere help, but a summons to him telling him
that her love was his.
He ran to the edge of the cliff. He searched the grey headland where the
shadows had swallowed up the canoes. There remained nothing--nothing but
the dull, cold prospect of the coming of winter--the relentless Arctic
winter.
He stood there without sign or sound. He made no movement. But the heart
of the man was shining in his eyes.
A shot rang out in the woods behind him. It was distant, but it split up
the silence with a meaning that could not be denied.
Marcel turned. The light in his eyes had changed. They were shadowed as
not even the parting had shadowed them. Oh, yes, he knew. It was a
signal to him. His own men were searching for him. It warned him that
winter was fast approaching, that merciless winter of Unaga, and these
men, these Sleepers, were eager to return to the warm comfort of their
quarters and their winter's sleep.