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.
"You see this little catch behind the trigger guard?" The girl nodded.
"When you want to fire it, all you have to do is to push up the little
catch with your thumb and pull the trigger. To-morrow I'm going to
teach you how to shoot with it--I mean shoot straight enough to take
the head off a grouse at twenty feet. And so it will bring you luck, I
want you to sleep with it,--under your pillow."
Understanding flashed through her, and a slow, grateful smile played at
her lips. "I don't want it, Bill," she told him.
"You'd feel safer with it," the man urged. He slipped it under her
pillow. "And even before you learn to shoot it well--you could--if
you had to--shoot and kill a man."
He smiled again and drew her curtain.
* * * * *
Bill was true to his promise to teach Virginia to shoot. The next day
he put up an empty can out from the door of the cabin and they had
target practice.
First he showed her how to hold the weapon and to stand. "See the can
just over the sights and press back gradually," he urged.
The first shot went wide of its mark. The second and third were no
better. But by watching her closely, Bill found out her mistake.
"You flinch," he told her. "It's an old mistake among hunters--and
the only way you can avoid it is by deepest concentration. Skill in
hunting--as well as in everything else--depends upon throwing the
whole energy of your mind and body into that one little part of an
instant when you pull the trigger. It's all right to be excited before.
You're not human if, the game knocked over, you're not excited after.
But unless you can hold like iron for that fraction of a second, you
can't shoot and you never can shoot."
"But I'm not excited now," she objected.
"You haven't got full discipline of your nerves, just the same.
You're a little afraid of the sound and the explosion, and you flinch
back--just a little movement of your hand--when you pull the trigger.
If it is only an eighth of an inch here, it's quite a miss by the time
the bullet gets out there. Try again, but convince yourself first that
you won't flinch. You won't jerk or throw off your aim."
She lowered the weapon and rested her nerves. Then she quietly lifted
the gun again. And the fourth bullet knocked the can spinning from the
log.
The man shouted his approval, and her flushed face showed what a real
triumph it was to her. Few of her lifelong accomplishments she had
valued more. Yet it caused no self-wonder; she only knew that she
respected and prized the good opinion of this stalwart woodsman, and by
this one little act she had proved to him the cool, strong quality of
her nerves.
And it was no little triumph. She had really learned the basic concept
of good shooting,--to throw the whole force of the nervous system into
the second firing. It was the same precept that makes toward all
achievement. The fact that she had grasped it so quickly was a guaranty
of her own metal. She felt something of that satisfaction that strong
men feel when they prove, for their own eyes alone, their self-worth.
It was the instinct that sends the self-indulgent business man, riding
to his work in a limousine, into the depths of the dreadful wilderness
to hunt, and that urges the tenderfoot to climb to the crest of the
highest peaks.
It did not mean that she was a dead shot already. Months and years of
practice are necessary to obtain full mastery of pistol or rifle. She
had simply made a most creditable start. There would be plenty of
misses thereafter; in fact, the next six shots she missed the can four
times. She had to learn sight control, how to gauge distance and wind
and the speed of moving objects; but she was on the straight road to
success.
While Virginia cooked lunch, Bill cut young spruce trees and made a
sled: and after the meal pushed out through the whirling snow to being
in the remainder of the moose meat. It was the work of the whole
afternoon to urge the sled up the ridge and then draw it home through
the drifts. The snow mantle had deepened alarmingly during the night,
and he came none too soon. It was only a matter of days, perhaps of
hours, before the snow would be impassable except with snowshoes. Until
at last the snowfall ceased and packed, traveling even with their aid
would be a heart-breaking business.
Virginia was lonely and depressed all the time Bill was absent, and she
had a moment of self-amazement at the rapidity with which she brightened
up at his return. But it was a natural development: the snow-swept
wilds were dreary indeed for a lonely soul. He was a fellow human
being; that alone was relationship enough.
"You can call me Virginia, if you want to," she told him. "Last names
are silly out here--Heaven knows we can't keep them up in these weeks
to come. I've called you Bill ever since the night we crossed the
river."
Bill looked his gratitude, and she helped him prepare the meat. Some of
it he hung just outside the cabin door; one of the great hams suspended
in a spruce tree, fifty feet in front of the cabin. The skin was
fleshed and hung up behind the stove to dry.
"It's going to furnish the web of our snowshoes," he explained.
That night their talk took a philosophical trend, and in the candlelight
he told her some of his most secret views. She found that the North,
the untamed land that had been his home, had colored all his ideas, yet
she was amazed at his scientific knowledge of some subjects.
Far from the influence of any church, she was surprised to find that he
was a religious man. In fact, she found that his religion went deeper
than her own. She belonged to one of the Protestant churches of
Christianity, attended church regularly, and the church had given her
fine ideals and moral precepts; but religion itself was not a reality to
her. It was not a deep urge, an inner and profound passion as it was
with him. She prayed in church, she had always prayed--half
automatically--at bedtime; but actual, entreating prayer to a literal
God had been outside her born of thought. In her sheltered life she had
never felt the need of a literal God. The spirit of All Being was not
close to her, as it was to him.
Bill had found his religion in the wilderness, and it was real. He had
listened to the voices of the wind and the stir of the waters in the
fretful lake; he had caught dim messages, yet profound enough to flood
his heart with passion, in the rustling of the leaves, the utter silence
of the night, the unearthly beauty of the far ranges, stretching one
upon another. His was an austere God, infinitely just and wise, but His
great aims were far beyond the power of men's finite minds to grasp.
Most of all, his was a God of strength, of mighty passions and moods,
but aloof, watchful, secluded.
In this night, and the nights that followed, she absorbed--a little at
a time--his most harboured ideas of life and nature. He did not speak
freely, but she drew him out with sympathetic interest. But for all he
knew life in the raw and the gloom of the spruce forest, his outlook had
not been darkened. For all his long acquaintance with a stark and
remorseless Nature, he remained an optimist.
None of his views surprised her as much as this. He knew the snows and
the cold, this man; the persecution of the elements and the endless
struggle and pain of life, yet he held no rancor. "It's all part of the
game," he explained. "It's some sort of a test, a preparation--and
there's some sort of a scheme, too big for human beings to see, behind
it."
He believed in a hereafter. He thought that the very hardship of life
made it necessary. Earthly existence could not be an end in itself, he
thought: rather the tumult and stress shaped and strengthened the soul
for some stress to come. "And some of us conquer and go on," he told
her earnestly. "And some of us fall--and stop."
"But life isn't so hard," she answered. "I've never known hardship or
trial. I know many men and girls that don't know what it means."
"So much to their loss. Virginia, those people will go out of life as
soft, as unprepared, as when they came in. They will be as helpless as
when they left their mother's wombs. They haven't been disciplined.
They haven't known pain and work and battle--and the strengthening
they entail. They don't live a natural life. Nature meant for all
creatures to struggle. Because of man's civilization they are having an
artificial existence, and they pay for it in the end. Nature's way is
one of hardship."
This man did not know a gentle, kindly Nature. She was no friend of
his. He knew her as a siren, a murderess and a torturer, yet with great
secret aims that no man could name or discern. Even the kindly summer
moon lighted the way for hunting creatures to find and rend their prey.
The snow trapped the deer in the valleys where the wolf pack might find
easy killing; the cold killed the young grouse in the shrubbery; the
wind sang a song of death. He pointed out that all the wilderness
voices expressed the pain of living,--the sobbing utterance of the
coyotes, the song of the wolves in the winter snow, the wail of the
geese in their southern migrations.
In these talks she was surprised to learn how full had been his reading.
All through her girlhood she had gone to private schools and had been
tutored by high-paid intellectual aristocrats, yet she found this man
better educated than herself. He had read philosophy and had browsed,
at least, among all the literature of the past; he knew history and a
certain measure of science, and most of all, the association of areas of
his brain were highly developed so that he could see into the motives
and hearts of things much more clearly than she.
In the nights he told her Nature lore, the ways of the living-creatures
that he observed, and in the daytime he illustrated his points from
life. They would take little tramps together through the storm and
snow, going slowly because of the depth of the drifts, and under his
tutelage, the wild life began to reveal to her its most hidden secrets.
Sometimes she shot grouse with her pistol; once a great long-pinioned
goose, resting on the shore of frozen Gray Lake, fell to her aim. She
saw the animals in the marshes, the herds of caribou that are, above all
creatures, natives and habitants of the snow-swept mountains, the
little, lesser hunters such as marten and mink and otter. One night
they heard the wolf pack chanting as they ran along the ridge.
Life was real up here. The superficialities with which she had dealt
before were revealed in their true light. Of all the past material
requisites, only three remained,--food and warmth and shelter. Others
that she did not think she needed--protection, and strength and
discipline--were shown as vitally necessary. Comradeship was needed,
too, the touch of a helping hand in a moment of fear or danger; and
love--the one thing she lacked now--was most necessary of all. It was
not enough just to give love. For years she had poured her adoration
upon Harold, lost it too, reciprocally; and this she might find strength
for the war of life, even a tremulous joy in meeting and surmounting
difficulties.
The snow fell almost incessantly and the tree limbs could hold no more.
The drifts deepened in the still aisles between trunk and trunk. When
the clouds broke through and the stars were like great precious diamonds
in the sky, the cold would drop down like a curse and a scourge, and the
ice began to gather on Grizzly River.
On such nights the Northern Lights flashed and gleamed and danced in the
sky and swept the forest world with mystery.