IX

There is a certain capacity in young and sturdy human beings for

accepting the inevitable. When Virginia wakened the next morning, her

physical distress was largely past and she was in a much better frame of

mind. She pulled herself together, stiffened her young spine, and

prepared to make the best of a deplorable situation. She had come up

here to find her lost beloved, and she wasn't defeated yet. This very

development might bring success.

She realized that the fact that she had thus found a measure of

compensation for the disaster would have been largely unintelligible to

most of the girls of her class,--the girls she knew in the circle in

which she had moved. It was not the accustomed thing to remain faithful

to a fiance who had been silent an missing for six years, or to seek him

in the dreary spaces of the North. The matter got down to the simple

fact that these girls were of a different breed. Culture and

sophistication and caste had never destroyed an intensity and depths of

elemental passion that might have been native to these very wildernesses

in which she was imprisoned. Cool an self-restrained to the finger

tips, she knew the full meaning of fidelity. Orphaned almost in

babyhood, she had lived a lonely life: this girlhood love affair of hers

had been her single, great adventure. She had been sure that her lover

still lived when all her friends had judged him dead. Months and years

she had dreamed of finding him, of sheltering again in his arms, and

proving to all the world that her faith was justified.

Bill was already up, and the room warmed from the fire. The noise of

his ax blows had wakened her. And she took advantage of his absence to

dress.

"You up?" he cried in delight when she entered. His arms were heaped

with wood. "I'm not sure that you hadn't ought to rest another day.

How do you feel?"

"As good as ever, as far as I can tell. And pretty well ashamed of

being such a baby yesterday."

But his smile told her that he held no resentment. "I trust you'll be

able to eat to-day?"

"Eat? Bill, I am famished. But first"--and her face grew instantly

sober--"I want to know just how we stand, and what our chances are. I

remember what you told me yesterday about getting out. But we can't

live here on nothing. What about supplies?"

"That's what we've got to see about right now. It's an important

matter, true enough. For a certain very good reason I couldn't make a

real investigation till you got up. You'll see why in a minute. Well,

we have a gun at least; you can see it behind the stove. It's an old

thing, but it will still shoot. And we've got at least one box of

shells for it--and not one of them must be wasted. They mean our meat

supply. I'm still wearing my pistol, and I've got two boxes of shells

for it in my pocket--it's a small caliber, and there's fifty in each

box. There are plenty of blankets and cooking utensils, magazines for

idle hours and, Heaven bless us, an old and battered phonograph on the

table. Don't scorn it--anything that has to be packed on a horse this

far mustn't be scorned. We can have music with our meals, if we like."

He stopped and smiled.

"There's a cake of soap on the shelf," he went on, after the gorgeous

fact of the phonograph had time to sink home, "and another among the

supplies--but I'm afraid cold cream and toilet water are lacking. I

don't even know how you'll comb your hair."

The girl smiled--really with happiness now--and fished in the

pockets of a great slicker coat she had worn the night of the disaster.

She produced a little white roll, and with the high glee opened it for

him to see. Wrapped in a miniature face towel was her comb, a small

brush, and a toothbrush!

They laughed with delight over the find. "But no mirror?" the man said

solemnly.

"No. I won't be able to see how I look for weeks--and that's

terrible. But where are your food supplies? I see those sacks hanging

from the ceiling--but they certainly haven't enough to keep us alive.

And there's nothing else that I can see."

"We'd have a hard time, if we had to depend on the contents of those

sacks. Miss Tremont, can you cook?"

"Cook? Good Heavens--I never have. But I can learn, I suppose."

"You'd better learn. It will help pass away the time. I'll be busy

getting meat and keeping the fires high, among other things."

"But what is there to cook?"

He walked, with some triumph, to the bunk on which she had slept the

night before, and lifting it up, revealed a great box beneath. She

understood, now, why he had not been able to make a previous

investigation. They danced with joy at its contents,--bags of rice

and beans, dried apples, marmalade and canned goods, enough for some

weeks at least. Best of all, from Bill's point of view, there were a

few aged and ripened plugs of tobacco, for cutting up for his pipe.

"The one thing we haven't got is meat," Bill told her, "except a little

jerky; but there's plenty of that in the woods if we can just find it.

And I don't intend to delay about that. If the snow gets much deeper,

we'd have to have snowshoes to hunt at all."

"You mean--to go hunting to-day?"

"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."