IV

It was one of the decrees of the forest gods that no human being shall

ride for five miles through the spruce forests of the Selkirks and fail

to glean at least some slight degree of wilderness knowledge. Both

Virginia and Lounsbury had been on horseback before. Virginia had

ridden in the parks of her native city: long ago and far away a

barefoot, ragged boy--much to be preferred to the smug and petulant

man who now tried to hard to forget those humble days--had bestrode an

old plow horse nightly on the way to a watering trough. But this riding

had qualities all its own. There was no open road winding before them.

Nor was there any trail,--in general or particular.

It was true that the moose had passed that way, leaving their great

footprints in the dying grass. They had chosen the easiest pathway over

the hills, and Bill was enough of a woodsman to follow where they led.

Traversing the Clearwater was simply a matter of knowing the country and

going in a general direction. Almost at once the evergreen thickets

closed around them.

Virginia found that safety depended upon constant watchfulness. The

evergreen branches struck cruel blows at her face, the spruce needles

cut like knives. Sometimes the horse in front would bend down a young

tree, permitting it to whip back with a deadly blow; she had to watch

her knees in the narrow passages between the trunks; and the vines

reached and caught at her. Sometimes the long-hanging limbs of the

young trees made an impassable barrier, and more than once she was

nearly dragged from the saddle. Shortly they came to the first fallen

log.

Mulvaney, Bill's horse, took it lightly; and the man turned to watch the

girl. Her horse stepped gingerly, making it without trouble. Then the

guide saw fit to give her a little good advice.

"Kick Buster in the ribs just before you come to a log," he said.

"He'll jump 'em then. It's a whole lot safer--if he tries to step

over 'em he's apt to get his foot caught and give you a bad fall."

Virginia looked up coldly. She wasn't accustomed to being spoken to in

quite this tone of voice, particularly by an employee. But she saw his

sober eyes and immediately forgot her resentment. And she found an

actual delight in bounding over the next obstruction.

"And there's one more thing," the guide went on. "I've ridden plenty of

horses, and I've found there's only one way to handle 'em. I'm going to

try a new way to-day, because there's a lady in the party. But if I'm

tried too heavy----"

"Go ahead," the girl replied, smiling. "I suppose you mean--to

swear."

"Not just to swear. Call names. These horses won't think we're present

if we don't swear at 'em. And the only name they know refers to them is

one that casts slurs upon their ancestry, but I'll try to avoid it

to-day. I suppose I can make a roaring sound that sounds enough like it

to fool the horses."

Virginia was naturally alert and quick-witted, and she needed both of

these traits now. The guide helped her all he could, warning her of

approaching thickets; yet the first hour was a grim initiation to the

woods. Lounsbury was having even a more difficult time. He was afraid

of his horse, to start with--and this is never an auspicious

beginning. A frightened rider means a nervous, excited animal--and

nervousness and excitement are unhealthy qualities in the Selkirks.

Neither put trust in the other, and Lounsbury's cruel, lashing blows

with the long bridle ends only made matters worse. The horse leaped and

plunged, slipped badly on the hills, progressed awkwardly over the

fallen logs, and flew into wild panic when he came to the quagmires.

The man's temper fell far below the danger point in the first hour, and

he was savage and desperate before half of the afternoon's ride was

done.

The thickets were merciless. They knew him, those silent evergreens:

they gave no welcome to his breed; and it seemed to him they found a

hundred ways to plague him. Their needles scratched his face, their

branches whipped into his eyes, the limbs dealt cruel blows at his side

and the tree trunks wrenched at his knees. Worse still, they soon came

to a hill that Bill advised they take on foot.

"Not me," Lounsbury shrilled. "I'll swear I won't walk any hills.

You've provided a vicious horse for me, and I'm going to ride him

up if it kills him. I didn't come out here to break my wind on

mountains--and this horse needs the devil taken out of him, anyway."

It was in Virginia's mind that none of the emphatic but genial oaths

that Bill had let slip from time to time grated on her half so much as

this frenzied complaint of her companion, but she kept her thoughts to

herself. But Bill turned with something dangerously like a smile.

"Suit yourself, of course," he replied. "I'm not asking you to walk up

to spare your horse. Only, from time to time a horse makes a misstep on

this hill--just one little slip--and spins down in backward

somersets a thousand feet. If you want to try it, of course it's all

right with me."

He swung off his horse, took the bridle reins of both his own animal and

Virginia's, and started the long climb. And it was to be noticed that

at the first steep pitch Lounsbury found that he was tired of riding and

followed after meekly, but with wretched spirit.

They stopped often to rest; and from the heights Virginia got her first

real glimpse of Clearwater. Her first impression was simply vast and

unmeasured amazement at the dimensions of the land. As far as she could

see lay valley after valley, range upon range, great forests of spruce

alternating with open glades, dim unnamed lakes glinting pale blue in

the afternoon sun, whole valleys where the foot of white man had never

trod. She felt somewhat awed, scarcely knowing why.

Rivers gleamed, marshes lay yellow and somber in the sun, the dark

forests stretched until the eyes tired; but nowhere were there any

homes, any villages or pastures, not a blaze upon a tree, not the smoke

of a camp fire. Bradleyburg was already obliterated and lost in the

depths of the woodland. The silence was incredible,--as vast and

infinite as the wilderness itself. It startled her a little, when they

paused in their climb, to hear the pronounced tick of her wrist watch,

even the whisper of her own breath. It was as if she had gone to an

enchanted land, a place that lay in a great sleep that began in the

world's young days, and from which the last reaches of time it could

never waken.

Bill, standing just above her, pointed to a dash of golden across the

canyon. "That's quivering asp," he told her, "turned by the frost. It

seems good to see a bit of color in this world of dark woods. It's just

like a flash of sunshine in a storm."

She listened with some surprise. The same detail had held her gaze, the

same thought--almost the same simile--had come into her mind; but

she had hardly expected to find a love of the beautiful in this bronzed

forester. In fact, she found that a number of her preconceived ideas

were being turned topsy-turvy.

Heretofore, it seemed to her, her thought had always dwelt on the

superficialities rather than the realities of life. Her income was

pitifully small according to her standards, yet she had never had to

consider the question of food and shelter. She had known social

success, love of beauty and of art, gayety and luxury; she had had petty

discouragements and triumphs, worries and fears, but of the simple and

primitive basis of things she took no cognizance. She had never dealt

with essentials. They had always seemed outside her life.

Virginia had never lived in the shadow of Fear,--that greatest and

most potent of realities. In truth she didn't know the meaning of the

word. She had been afraid in her bed at night, she had been

apprehensive of a block's walk in the twilight, but Fear--in its true

sense--was an alien and a stranger. She had never met him in the

waste places, seen him skulking on her trail through the winter snows,

listened to his voice in the wind's wail. She didn't know the fear of

which the coyotes sang from this hill, the blind and groping dread of an

immutable destiny, the ghastly realization of impotence against a cruel

and omnipotent fate. She hadn't ever learned about it. Living a

protected life she didn't know that it existed. Food and shelter and

warmth and safety had always seemed her birthright; about her house

marched the officers of the law protecting her from evildoers; she lived

in sight of great hospitals that would open their doors to the sick and

injured and of charitable institutions that would clothe and feed the

needy: thus the world had kept its bitter truths from her. But she was

beginning to learn them now. She was having her first glimpse of life,

life stripped of all delusion, stark and naked, the relentless reality

that it was.

Fear was no stranger to these forests. Its presence, in every turn of

the trail, filled her with awe. A single misstep, a little instant of

hesitation in a crisis, might precipitate her a thousand feet down the

canyon to her death. Dead trees swayed, threatening to fall; snow

slides roared and rumbled on the far steeps; the quagmire sucked with

greedy lips, the trail wandered dimly,--as if it were trying to decoy

her away into the fastnesses where the wilderness might claim her. No

one had to tell her how easy it would be to lose the trail, never to

find it again. The forests were endless; there were none to hear a

wanderer's cry for help. Wet matches, an accident to the food supplies,

a few nights without shelter in the dismal forest,--any of these might

spell complete and irrevocable disaster.

What had she known of Death? It was a thing to claim old people,

sometimes to take even her young friends from their games among the

flowers, but never had it been an acquaintance to hers. It was as

wholly apart from her as the beings of another planet. But here she had

come to the home of Death,--cold and fearful obliteration dwelling in

every thicket. She found herself wondering about it, now, and dreading

it with a new dread that she had never dreamed of before. The only real

emotions she had ever known were her love for Harold Lounsbury and her

grief at his absence: in these autumn woods she might easily learn all

the others. She had never known true loneliness; here, except for her

fiance's uncle with whom she had never felt on common ground and two

paid employees--the latter, she told herself, did not count--she was

as much alone as if she had been cast upon an uninhabited sphere.

Already she knew something of the great malevolence that is the eternal

tone of the wilderness, the lurking peril that is the North.

This new view influenced her attitude toward Bill. At first she had

felt no interest in him whatever. Of a class that does not enter into a

basis of equality with personal employees, to her he had seemed in the

same category with a new house servant or chauffeur. He had been hired

to do her service; he was either a bad servant or a good one, and from

her he would receive kindness and patronage, but never real feeling or

friendship, never more than an impersonal interest. But now that she

knew something of the real nature of this expedition, affairs had taken

a new turn. She suddenly realized that her whole happiness, her

comfort, perhaps even life itself depended upon him. He was their

protector, their source of supplies, their refuge and their strength as

well.

The change did not mean that she was willing to enter upon a basis of

comradeship with him--yet. But she did find a singular satisfaction

in the mere fact of his presence. Here was one who could build a fire

in the snow if need be, whose strong arms could cut fuel, who could

manage the horses and bring them safe to the journey's end. His rifle

swung in his saddle scabbard, his pistol belt encircled his waist; he

knew how to adjust the packs, to peg the tent fast in a storm, to find

bread and meat in the wilderness. She began to notice his lithe, strong

figure as he sat in his saddle, the ease with which he controlled his

horse and avoided the pitfalls in the trail. When the moose tracks were

too dim for her eyes to see, he followed them with ease. When the

horses bolted from some unfamiliar smell in the thicket, he was quick to

round them up. The animals were swift in obedience when he spoke to

them, but they were only terrified by Lounsbury's shrill shouts. He was

cool of nerve, self-possessed, wholly self-reliant. She listened with

an eager gladness to his soft whistling: simple classics that she

herself loved but which came strangely from the lips of this son of the

forest.

His eyes were bright and music was in his heart,--in spite of the dark

menace of these northern woodlands. He was not afraid: rather he seemed

to be getting a keen enjoyment out of the afternoon's ride. And the

great truth suddenly came to her that in his strength lay hers, that she

had entrusted her welfare to him and for the present, at least, it was

secure. And she put her own cares away.

She would not have admitted that she had simply followed the example of

the uncounted millions of women that had preceded her through the long

reaches of the centuries that had found strength and peace in the

shelter of a strong man's arm. She only knew that her mind no longer

dwelt on danger, but it had marvelously opened to receive the image of

the grim but ineffable beauty of this wild land through which she rode.

She felt secure, and she began to have an intangible but ever-increasing

delight in the wonderland about her.

* * * * *

Her first impression of the wilderness was that of a far-stretching

desert, forgotten and desolate and unpeopled as the fiery stars.

Likewise this was Lounsbury's view, as in the case of every tenderfoot

who had preceded him, but Lounsbury would likely grow old and perish

without discovering his mistake. Clear eyes are needed to read the

secrets of the wild: the dark glass through which he gazed at the world

had never cleared. Vosper had lived months and years in the North, but

he had only hatred in his heart of these waste places and thus received

no glory from them. But Virginia soon found out the truth.

"There's an old bull been along here not twenty minutes ago," Bill told

her after they reached the hilltop. "The mud hasn't begun to dry in his

tracks."

"An old bull?" she repeated. "Do cattle run here----?"

"Good Lord, there isn't a cow this side of the shipping point. I mean a

bull moose. And he's a lunker, too. Maybe we'll catch a glimpse of

him."

In her time she had talked enough to big-game hunters to have

considerable respect for the moose, the largest of all deer tribe, and

she thrilled a little at the thought that she was in his own range. She

didn't get a sight of the great creature, but she began to pay more

attention to the trail. Seeing her interest the guide began to read to

her the message in the tracks,--how here a pair of otters had raced

along in the dawn, stopping at intervals to slide; how a cow caribou and

calf had preceded them at midday; how a coyote had come skulking the

previous night. Beside a marsh he showed her the grim evidence of a

wilderness tragedy,--the skeleton and feathers of a goose that a

stalking wolf had taken by surprise. And once he showed her a great

tear in the bark of a tree, nearly as high as she could reach on

horseback.

"What is it?" she inquired.

"That's the sign that the lord of the manor has been along. Miss

Tremont, did you ever hear of an animal called the grizzly bear?"

"Good heavens! A bear couldn't reach that high----"

"Couldn't? Some of these bears could scoop the man out of the moon!"

He showed her gray, crinkling hairs that had caught in the bark,

explaining that mysterious wilderness custom of the grizzly of measuring

his length on the tree trunks and leaving a mark, as high as he can

bite, for all to see. According to many naturalists any bear that

cannot bite an equal height immediately seeks a new range, leaving the

district to the larger bear. But Bill confessed that he took the legend

with a grain of salt. "I've seen too many bear families running around

the woods together," he explained. "Pa bears, ma bears, and baby bears,

all different sizes."

Virginia noticed that he spoke with great respect for that huge forest

king, the grizzly; but she needn't have wondered. The great creature

was worthy of it.

Perhaps the most intelligent wild animal that roams the American

continent--on the same intellectual plane with the dog and

elephant--he was also the most terrible. The truth has been almost

established among the big-game hunters that wild animals, with few

exceptions, even when wounded practically never charge or attack the

hunter. But his imperial majesty, the grizzly, was first on the list

of exceptions. He couldn't be entirely trusted. His terrible strength,

his ferocity, most of all his courage won him a wide berth through this

mountain land.

She began to catch glimpses of bird life,--saucy jays and

glorious-colored magpies and grossbeaks. She cried out in delight when

a pine squirrel scampered up a little tree just over her head, pausing

to look down at these strange forms that had disturbed the cathedral

silence of the tree aisles. And all at once Bill drew up his horses.

"Miss Tremont, do you like chicken?" he asked.

She was somewhat startled by the abrupt question, and her horse nosed

Mulvaney's flanks before she drew him to a halt. It occurred to her

that such a query scarcely came under the title of small talk, and she

found some difficulty in shaping her answer. "Why yes," she agreed.

"I'm very fond of chicken."

"It's pretty good, boiled with rice," the man went on gravely. "We'll

have some for supper."

Virginia stared at him in blank amazement as he slipped down from the

saddle and drew his automatic, small-calibered pistol from the holster.

He stole forward into the flaking shadows of late afternoon, and at once

the brush obscured him. Then he shot,--four times in succession.

She was wholly unable to guess what manner of target he had. Chickens

were one thing that she found it hard to believe ranged in these

northern woods. She felt certain that he had missed the first three

shots, but she waited with considerable interest the result of the

fourth. And soon he pushed through the thickets to her side.

In his hand he held a queer, gray, shapeless bundle that at first she

could not recognize. Then she saw that they were gray grouse, almost

the color of a Plymouth Rock hen, and there was not one, but four! He

started to stuff them into his saddlebag. "Pretty lucky that time," he

explained. "Got 'em through the neck. That leaves the meat clean----"

He seemed wholly matter-of-fact about the incident, but Virginia

continued to stare at him in open-mouthed astonishment. "Four of them?"

she cried.

"One apiece. There was five in the flock, but the other looked like a

tough old hen. But don't look so amazed, Miss Tremont. They are fool

hens--Franklin's grouse--and that means that they'll set all day and

let you pepper at 'em. And with a little practice it's easy to get them

in the neck pretty near every time."

He swung into the saddle, and they started forth upon the last hour of

their day's journey. And Vosper made the only remark worth recording.

"When I was in Saskatchewan last year," he began in a thin, far-carrying

voice, "I must 'a shot a thousand grouse and didn't miss one."

Virginia felt that she'd like to go back and shake him.

V

Now that they were upon the last hour of the day's ride Virginia began

to be aware of the full measure of her fatigue. She was strained and

tired from the saddle, her knees ached, her face burned from the scratch

of the spruce needles. Ever she found it more difficult to dodge the

stinging blows of the boughs, she was less careful in the control of her

horse. From sheer exhaustion Lounsbury had stopped his complaints.

The first grayness of twilight had come, like mist, over the distant

hills; but the peaks were still bathed in the sunset's glow. She began

to have a real and overwhelming longing for camp and rest. And in the

midst of her dejection the dark man in front threw her a smile.

"It goes hard at first," he told her gently. "But we'll soon be in

camp--with a good fire. You'll feel better right away."

It had not been Virginia's way--or the way of Virginia's class--to

depend upon their menials for encouragement; but, strangely, the girl

felt only grateful.

She was hungry, chilled through by the icy breath of the falling night,

half-sick with fatigue. The last mile seemed endless. And she was

almost too tired to drag herself off the horse when they came to camp.

Back among the dark spruce, by the edge of a fast-flowing trout stream,

Bill had built a cabin,--one of the camps of his trap line. It was

only a hut, perhaps ten feet long by eight wide; it had no floor and but

slabs for a roof, no window and no paneled interior; only the great

logs, lifted one upon another; yet no luxurious hotel that had been her

lodging for the night on previous journeys had ever seemed to her such a

haven; none had ever been such a comfort to her tired spirit. Her heart

flooded with joy at the sight of it. Bill smiled and held the door open

wide.

"Sit down on that busted old chair," he advised. "I'll have a fire for

you in a minute."

A rusted camp stove had been erected in the cabin and she watched,

fascinated, his quick actions as he built a fire. With astonishingly

few strokes he cut down a pitch-laden spruce, trimmed the branches, and

soon came staggering into camp with a four-foot length of the trunk

across his brawny back, grunting like a buffalo the while. This he

split and cut into lengths suitable for the stove. With his hunting

knife he cut curling shavings, and in a moment a delicious warmth began

to flood the cabin. The girl's body welcomed it, it stole into her

tissues and buoyed up her spirits. She opened her hands to it as to a

beloved friend.

It was only warmth,--the exhalation from a rusted stove in a crudely

constructed cabin. Yet to Virginia it was dear beyond all naming. In

one little day on that dreadful trail she had, in some measure at least,

got down to essentials; the ancient love of the fire, implanted deeply

in the germ plasm, was wakened and recalled. It was not a love that she

had to learn. The warp and woof of her being was impregnated with it;

only in her years of ease she had forgotten what an ancient friend and

comfort it was.

In her past life Virginia had never known the real meaning of hunger.

Her meals were inadvertent; she had them more from a matter of habit

than a realization of bodily craving. But curiously, for the last hour

her thought had dwelt on food,--the simple, material substance with no

adornment. The dainty salads and ices and relishes that had been her

greatest delight in her city home hadn't even come into her mind, but

she did remember, with unlooked-for fondness, potatoes and meat. And

now she watched Vosper's supper preparations with an eagerness never

known before.

Although Vosper had been hired for cook, Virginia noticed that Bill kept

a watchful eye over the preparation of the food; and she felt distinctly

grateful. She saw the grouse in the process of cleaning, and the red

stains on Vosper's hands did not repel her at all. She beheld the

smooth cascade of the rice as Bill poured it into the boiling water, her

own hand opened a can of dehydrated vegetables that was to give flavor

to the dish. She gave no particular thought to the fact that the hour

was revealing her not as an exquisite creature of a higher plane, but

simply a human animal with an empty stomach. If the thought did come to

her she didn't care. She only knew she was hungry,--hungry as she had

never dreamed she could be in all her days.

The white flesh of the grouse was put with the rice, one bird after

another, until it seemed impossible that four human beings could consume

them all. In went the seasoning, spaghetti and the vegetables, and not

even Lounsbury railed at the little handful of ashes that floated on top

the mixture. And Virginia exulted from head to toes when Bill passed

the tin plates.

It was well for Virginia's peace of mind that no one told her how much

she ate. In her particular set it wasn't a mark of breeding to eat too

heartily; and an entire grouse, at least two cups of the stew and

several inch-thick slices of bread with marmalade would have been

considered a generous meal even for a harvest-hand.

As soon as the meal was done she felt ready for bed. Bill ventured into

the darkness with an ax over his shoulder, but not until his return did

she understand his mission. His arms were heaped with fragrant spruce

boughs. These he laid on the cot in the cabin, spreading the blankets

he had provided for her over them. He placed the pillow and turned down

the blanket corners.

"Any time you like," he told her gently. "Vosper is putting up the

linen tent for we three men, and I'll build a fire in front of it to

keep us warm while we smoke. You must be tired."

She smiled wanly. "I am tired, Bronson," she confessed. "And thank

you, very much."

She didn't notice the wave of color that flowed into his bronzed cheeks

and the strange, jubilant light in his eyes. She only knew that she was

warm and full-fed, and the wind would bluster and threaten around her

cabin walls in vain.

For a long hour after Virginia was asleep Bill sat by the fireside

alone, his pipe glowing at his lips. Lounsbury had gone to his

blankets, Vosper was splitting wood for the morning's fire. As

often, late at night, he was held and intrigued by the mystery about

him,--the little, rustling, whispered sounds of living things in the

thicket, the silence and the darkness and the savagery.

He knew perfectly the tone and spirit of these waste places: their

might, their malevolence, their sadness, their eternal beauty. He hated

them and yet he loved them, too. He had felt their hospitality, yet he

knew that often they rose in the still night and slew their guests.

They crushed the weak, but they lent their own strength to the strong.

And Bill felt that he was face to face with them as never before.

He was going to plumb their secret places,--not only for the missing

man, but for the lost mine he had sought so long. He must not only

fight his own battles, but he had in his charge a helpless, tender thing

of whom his body must be a shield. Never, it seemed to him, had he met

the wilderness night in just this mood,--threatening, vaguely

sinister, tremulous and throbbing with impending drama.

"You've got something planned for me, haven't you?" he asked his forest

gods. "You've got your trap all set, and you're going to test me as

never before. And Heaven give me strength to meet that test!"

At that instant he started and looked up. The stars were obscured, the

firelight died swiftly in unfathomable darkness, the tops of the spruce

were lost in gloom. A flake of wet snow had fallen and struck his hand.

* * * * *

All night long the storm raged over the spruce forest; lashing rain that

beat and roared on the cabin roof, then the unutterable silence of

falling snow. The camp fire hissed and went out, the tent sagged with

the load, the horses were wet and miserable in the glade below.

Virginia slept fitfully, waking often to listen to the clamor of the

storm, then falling into troubled dreams. Bill lay at the tent mouth

for long hours, staring into the darkness.

In the morning the face of the wilderness was changed. Every bough,

every spruce needle, every little grass blade had its load of snow. The

streams were higher, a cold and terrible beauty dwelt in the forest.

The sky was still full of snow, dark flakes against the gray sky, and

the clouds were sullen and heavy. Bill rose before daylight to build

the fire at the tent mouth.

This was no work for tenderfeet, striking a blaze in the snow-covered

grass. But Bill knew the exact course to pursue. He knew just how to

lay his kindling, to protect the blaze from the wind, to thrust a

fragment of burning candle under the shavings. Soon the blaze was

dancing feebly in the darkness. He piled on fuel, and with Vosper's aid

started breakfast preparations.

When the meal was nearly ready he knocked at the cabin door. "Yes?"

Virginia called.

Bill hesitated and stammered. He didn't exactly know whether or not he

was stepping outside the bounds of propriety. "Would you like to have

me come in and build a fire for you to dress by?" he asked.

Virginia considered. Few were the eyes, in her short days, that had

beheld her in bed; but to save her she could not think of a reason why

this kind offer should not be accepted. She was down to the realities;

besides, the room was disagreeably chilly. She snuggled down and drew

the blankets about her throat.

"Come ahead," she invited.

With scarcely a glance at her he entered and built a fire, and a few

minutes later he brought in her steaming breakfast. The door was open

then, and she saw the snow without.

Her face was a little pale and her voice was strained when she spoke

again. "What does it mean?" she asked.

"What? The snow?"

"Yes. Does it mean that winter has come?"

"No. When winter does come, there never is any question about it--and

it really isn't due for another month. If I thought it was real winter

I'd advise going back. But I think it's just an early snowfall--to

melt away the first warm day."

"But isn't there danger--that by going farther we'd be snowed in?"

"Even if winter should close down, and we find the snow deepening to the

danger point, it wouldn't be too late to turn back then. Of course

we've got to keep watch. A week or so of steady snow might make these

mountains wholly impassable--the soft, wet snow of the Selkirks can't

even be manipulated with snowshoes to any advantage. We'd simply have

to wait till the snow packed--which might not be for months. But we

can go on a few days, at least, and ride safely back through two feet of

snow or more. Of course--it depends on how badly you want to go on."

"I want to go--more than anything in the world."

"Then we will go on. I've already sent Vosper to get the horses."

He turned to his work. Lounsbury, his mood still unassuaged, called

from his bed. "Bring me my breakfast here, Bronson," he commanded.

"Lord, I've had a rotten night. This bed was like stones. I can't

compliment you on your accommodations."

Bill brought him his breakfast, quietly and gravely. "They're not my

accommodations," Bill replied. "They're God Almighty's. And I made it

just as comfortable for you as I can."

"I think you could have provided folding cots, anyway. I've a great

mind to turn back." He looked into the snow-filled sky. "By George, I

will turn back. There's no sense in going any farther in this wild

goose chase. It's a death trip, that's all it is--going out in this

snow. Tell Miss Tremont that we're starting back."

Bill stood straight and tall. "I've already talked that over with Miss

Tremont," he answered quietly. "She has given the order to go on."

The fleshy sacks under Lounsbury's eyes swelled with wrath. "She has,

has she? I think she's already told you that I'm financing this trip,

not her, and I've told you so too. I'm doing the hiring and giving the

orders."

"In that case, it's your privilege to order me to turn back, and of

course I will obey. You will owe me, however, for the full thirty

days."

For a moment a spectator would have eyed Lounsbury with apprehension; to

all appearances he had swollen past the danger mark and was about to

explode. "You'd hold me up, would you--you--you--I'd like to see

you get it."

Bill eyed him long and grimly. There was a miniature flake of fire in

each of his dark eyes and a curious little quiver, vaguely ominous, in

his muscles. There was also a grim determination in the set of his

features. "I'd get it all right," he assured him. Then his voice

changed, friendly and soft again. "But you'd better talk it over with

Miss Tremont, Mr. Lounsbury. The snow is likely only temporary. I'll

see that you turn back before it gets too deep for safety."

They folded the tent and packed the horses, and shortly after eight Bill

led the way deeper into the forest. The snow-swept trees, the white

glades between, the long line of pack horses following in the wake of

the impassive form of Bill made a picture that Virginia could never

forget. And ever the snow sifted down upon them, ever heavier on the

branches, ever deeper on the trail.

If the record of the wild things had been clear in yesterday's mud it

was an open book to-day. Everywhere the trail was criss-crossed with

tracks. In that first mile she saw signs of almost every kind of living

creature that dwelt in this northern realm. Besides those of the larger

mammals, such as bear and moose and caribou, she saw the tracks of those

two savage hunters, the wolverine and lynx. The latter is nothing more

nor less than an overgrown tomcat, except for a decorative tuft at his

ears, and like all his brethren soft as flower petals in his step; but

because he mews unpleasantly on the trail he has a worse reputation than

he deserves. But not so with the wolverine. Many unkind remarks have

been addressed to him, but no words have ever been invented--even the

marvelous combinations of expletives known to the trapper--properly to

describe him. The little people of the forest--the birds in the

shrubbery and the squirrels in the trees and the little digging rodents

in the ground--fear him and hate him for his stealth and his cunning.

Even the cow caribou, remembering his way of leaping suddenly from

ambush upon her calf, dreads him for his ferocity and his strength; and

the trapper, finding his bait stolen from every trap on his line, calls

down curses upon his head. But for all this unpopularity he continues

to prosper and increase.

Virginia saw where a marten and a squirrel had come to death grips in

the snow: the tracks and an ominous red stain told the story plainly.

The squirrel had attempted to seek safety in flight, but the marten was

even swifter in the tree limbs than the squirrel himself. The little

animal had made a flying leap to the ground,--a small part of a second

too late. The marten, Bill explained, were no longer numerous. Fur

buyers all over the world were paying many times their weight in gold

for the glossy skins.

"Marten can catch squirrel, but fisher can catch marten," is an old

saying among the trappers; and as they rode Bill told her some of his

adventures with these latter, beautiful fur bearers. The fisher, it

seemed, hunted every kind of living creature that he could master except

fish. When the names of the animals were passed around, Bill said, the

otter and the fisher got their slips mixed, and the misnomer had

followed them through the centuries. He showed her the tracks of the

ermine and, now that they were reaching the high altitudes, the trail of

the ptarmigan in the snow. Mink, fox, and coyote had hunted each other

gayly through the drifts, and all three had hunted the snowshoe rabbit

and field mouse; a half-blind gopher had emerged from his den to view

the morning and had ducked quickly back at the sight of the snow; an owl

had snatched a Canada jay from her perch and had left a few clotted

feathers when the daylight had driven him from his feast.

The rigors of the day's travel were constantly increasing. The wet snow

steaming on their sides sapped the vitality of the horses; to keep them

at a fair pace required a constant stream of nervous energy on the part

of their riders. Virginia found it almost impossible to dodge the

snow-laden branches. They would slap snow into her face, down her neck

and into her sleeves: it sifted into her eyes and hair and chilled her

hands until they ached. The waterproof garments that she wore were

priceless after the first mile.

Lounsbury had an even more trying time. His clothes soaked through at

once, and the piercing, biting cold of the northern fall went into him.

He was drenched, shivering, incoherent with wrath when they stopped for

noon. He was not enough of a sportsman to take the consequences of his

arrogance in good spirit. He didn't know the meaning of that ancient

law,--that men must take the responsibility of their own deeds and

with good spirit pay for their mistakes. He didn't know how to smile at

the difficulties that confronted him. That ancient code of

self-mastery, of taking the bitter medicine of life without complaint

clear to the instant of death was far beyond his grasp. "You've made

everything just as hard for us as you could," he stormed at Bill. "If I

ever get back alive I'll get your guide's license snatched away from you

if I never do another thing. You don't know how to guide or pick a

trail. You brought us out here to bleed us. And you'll pay for it when

I get back."

Bill scarcely seemed to hear. He went on with his work, but when the

simple meal was over and the packing half done, he made his answer. He

drew a cloth sack from one of the packs, swung it on his shoulder, and

stepped over to Lounsbury's side.

"There's a couple of things I want to tell you," he began. He spoke in

a quiet voice, so that Virginia could not hear.

Lounsbury looked up with a scowl. "I don't know that I want to hear

them."

"I know you don't want to hear 'em, but you are going to hear 'em just

the same. I want to tell you that first I'm doing everything any human

being can to make you more comfortable. You can't take Morris chairs

along on a pack train. You can't take electric stoves, and you can't

boss the weather. It's your own fault you didn't provide yourself with

proper clothes. And I'm tired of hearing you yelp."

Lounsbury tried to find some crushing remark in reply. He only

sputtered.

"I can only stand so much, and then it makes me nervous," the guide went

on, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I don't care what you do when you get

back to town. I just don't want you pestering me any more with your

complaints. I've stood a lot for Miss Tremont's sake--she probably

wouldn't like to see anything happen to you. But just a few more little

remarks like you made before lunch, and you're apt to find yourself

standing in mud up to your knees in one of these mud holes--wrong end

up! And that wouldn't be becoming at all for an American millionaire."

Lounsbury opened his mouth several times. The same number of times he

shut it again. "I see," he said at last, clearly.

"Good. And here's some clothes of mine. They're not handsome, and

they'll not fit, but they'll keep you dry."

He dumped the larger portion of his own waterproofs on the ground at

Lounsbury's feet.