Virginia found the days much happier than she had hoped. She took a
real interest in caring for their little cabin, cooking the meals, even
mending Bill's torn clothes. She had a natural fine sense of flavors,
and out of the simple materials that they had in store she prepared
meals that in Bill's opinion outclassed the finest efforts of a French
chef. He would exult over them boyishly, and she found an unlooked-for
joy in pleasing him. She had made delicious puddings out of rice and
canned milk and raisins, she knew just the identical number of minutes
it required to broil a moose porterhouse just to his taste, and she
could fry a grouse to surpass the most succulent fried chicken ever
served in a southern home. All these things pleased her and occupied
the barren hours. She learned to sew on buttons, wash her own clothes,
and keep the cabin clean and neat as a hospital ward.
She liked the hours of sober talk in the evenings. Sometimes they would
play through the records, and so well had Bill made his selections that
she never tired of them. His preference tended toward melodies in the
minor, wailing things that to him vaguely reflected the voices of the
wild things and the plaintive utterances of the forest: she liked the
soul-stirring, emotional melodies. They worked up a rare comradeship
before the first week was done. She had never known a human being to
whom she opened her thoughts more freely.
She had her lonesome hours, but not so many as she had expected. When
time hung heavy on her hands she would take out one of the old magazines
that Bill had brought up to read on the winter nights, and devour it
from cover to cover. She had abundant health. The experience seemed to
build her up, rather than injure her. Her muscles developed, she
breathed deep of the cold, mountain air, and she had more energy than
she could easily spend.
She fought away the tendency to grow careless in dress or appearance.
She kept her few clothes clean and mended, she dressed her hair as
carefully as in her city house. Her skin was clear and soft, but she
didn't know how the wilderness life was affecting her beauty. What Bill
observed he did not tell her. Often the words were at his lips, but he
repressed them. In the first place he was afraid of speaking too
feelingly and giving away his heart's secret; in the second he had a
ridiculous fear that such a personal remark might tend to destroy the
fine balance of their relationship. She had no mirror, but soon she
became used to going without one. But one day, on one of their tramps,
she caught a perfect image of herself in a clear spring.
She had stopped to drink, but for a few seconds she only regarded
herself with speechless delight. She had had her share of beauty
before; now perfect health had brought its marvelous and indescribable
charm. Her hair was burnished and shimmering with life, her skin clear
and transparent, her throat had filled out, and her eyes were bright and
clear as she had never seen them. She felt no further need of
cosmetics. Her lips were red, and Nature had brought a glow to her
cheeks that no human skill could equal.
"Good Heavens, Bill!" she cried. "Why didn't you tell me that I was
getting prettier every day?"
"I didn't know you wanted me to," he replied. "But you are. I've been
noticing it a long time."
"You're a cold, impersonal person!" But at once her talk tripped on to
less dangerous subjects.
Their cabin life was redeemed by their frequent excursions into the
wild. The study of Nature was constantly more absorbing to the girl.
Although the birds had all gone south--except such hardy fowl as the
ptarmigan, that seemed to spend most of their time buried in the
snow--there was still mammalian life in plenty in the forest. The
little furred creatures still plied, nervous and scurrying as ever,
their occupations; and the caribou still wandered now and then through
their valley as they moved from ridge to ridge. The moose, however,
had mostly pushed down to the lower levels.
The grizzlies had gone into hibernation, and their tracks were no longer
to be seen in the snow; but the wolf pack still ran the ridges. And one
day they had a miniature adventure that concerned the gray band.
They were climbing a ridge one wintry day, unappalled by the three feet
or more of snow, when the girl suddenly touched his arm.
"First blood on caribou," she cried.
His eyes lighted, and he followed her gaze. Lately they had been having
a friendly contest as to who would get the first glimpse of any living
creature that they encountered in their tramps, and Bill was pleased to
admit that he had been barely holding his own. The girl's eyes were
practically as quick as his and better at long distances, and always
there was high celebration when she saw the game first. But to-day they
were fated for more exciting business.
The caribou were plunging as fast as they could through the snow. They
came, in caribou fashion, in a long file, each stepping into the tracks
of the other, and it was a good woodsman, coming along behind them, that
could tell whether there were two or ten in the band. An old bull with
sweeping horns led the file.
When going is at all easy, the caribou can travel at an incredible pace.
Even their swinging trot can carry them from range to range in a single
day; but when they choose to run their fastest, they seem to have wings.
To-day, however, the soft snow impeded their speed. They seemed to be
running freely enough, in great bounds, but Bill could tell that they
were hard pressed. He would have liked to have taken one of the young
cows to add to his larder, but they were too far to risk a shot. Then
he seized the girl by the hand.
"Plow fast as you can up hill," he urged. "I think we'll see some
action."
For he had guessed the impulse behind the wild race. They plunged
through the snow as fast as they could, then sank almost out of sight in
the drifts. And in a moment Bill pointed to a gray, shadowy band that
came loping toward them out of the haze.
It was the wolf pack, and they were deep in the hunt. They were great,
shaggy creatures, lean and savage, and Virginia felt glad that this
stalwart form was beside her. The wolves of the North, when the
starvation time is on, are not always to be trusted. They looked
ghostly and incredibly large through the flurries.
They came within a hundred yards, then their keen senses whispered a
warning. Just for an instant they stood motionless in the snow, heads
raised and fierce eyes grazing.
Bill raised his rifle. He took quick aim at the great leader, and the
report rang far through the silences. But the entire pack sprang away
as one.
"I can't believe that I missed," Bill cried. He started to take aim
again.
But no second shot was needed. Suddenly the pack leader leaped high in
the air and fell almost buried in the snow. His brethren halted,
seemingly about to attack the fallen, but Bill's shout frightened them
on. The great, gaunt creature would sing no more to the winter stars.
He was a magnificent specimen of the black wolf, head as large as that
of a black bear, and a pelt already rich and heavy. "We'll add a few
more from time to time," Bill told her, "and then you can have a coat."
In these excursions Virginia learned to use her pistol with remarkable
accuracy. Her strength increased: she could follow wherever Bill led.
Sometimes they climbed snowy mountains where the gales shrieked like
demons, sometimes they dipped into still, mysterious glens; they tracked
the little folk in the snow, and they called the moose from the thickets
beside the lake.
They did not forget their graver business. Ever Virginia kept watch for
a track that was not an animal track, a blaze on a tree that was not
made by the teeth of a porcupine or grizzly, a charred cook rack over
the ashes of a fire. But as yet they had found no sign of human
wayfarers other than themselves. There were no cut trees, no blazed
trails, no sign of a habitation. Yet she didn't despair. She had begun
to have some knowledge of the great distances of the region: she knew
there were plenty of valleys yet unsearched.
Bill never ceased to search for his mine. He looked for blazes too, for
a sign of an old camp or a pile of washings beside a stream. When he
found an open stream he would wash the gravel, and it seemed to him he
combed the entire region between the two little tributaries of Grizzly
River indicated on his map. But with the deepening snow search was ever
more difficult. Unlike Virginia, he was almost ready to give up.
The spirit of autumn had never shown her face again: winter had come to
stay. Every day the snow deepened, the cold in the long nights was more
intense. Travel was no longer possible without snowshoes, but the hide
stretched in the cabin was almost dry and ready to cut into thongs for
the webs. The less turbulent stretches of Grizzly River were frozen
fast: the actual crossing of the stream was no longer a problem. Beyond
it, however, lay only wintry mountains, covered to a depth of five feet
or more with soft and impassable snow; and until the snow crusted, the
journey to Bradleyburg was as impossible as if they had been cast away
on another sphere.
Even the rapids of the river had begun to freeze. Often the clouds
broke away at nightfall and let the cold come in,--stabbing,
incredible cold that meant death to any human being that was caught
without shelter in its grasp. The land locked tight: no more could Bill
hunt for his mine in the creek beds. The last of the moose went down to
their yarding grounds, and even the far-off glimpse of a caribou was a
rarity. The marmots had descended into their burros, the snowshoe
rabbit hopped, a lonely figure in the desolation, through the drifts.
Such of the other little people that remained--the weasel and the
ptarmigan--had turned to the hue of the snow itself.
But now the snowshoe frames were done, wrought from tough spruce, and
the moose hide cut into thongs and stretched across to make the webs.
For a few days Bill and Virginia had been captives in the cabin, and
they held high revels in celebration of their completion. Now they
could go forth into the drifts again.
It did not mean, however, that the time was ripe for them to take their
sled and mush into Bradleyburg. The snow was still too soft for long
jaunts. They had no tent or pack animals, and they simply would have to
wait for the most favorable circumstances to attempt the journey with
any safety whatever. In the soft snow they could only make, at the
most, ten miles a day; the sled was hard to drag; and the bitter cold of
the nights would claim them quickly. It was not merely an alternative
or a convenience with them to wait for the crust. It was simply
unavoidable. Worst of all, the early winter storms were not done; and a
severe blizzard on the trail would put a swift end to their journey.
But once more Virginia could search the snow for traces of her lover.
And after the jubilant evening meal--held in celebration of the
completion of the snowshoes--the girl stood in the cabin doorway,
looking a long time into the snow-swept waste.
It was a clear, icy night, and the Northern Lights were more vivid and
beautiful than she had ever seen them. Bill thought that she was
watching their display; if he had known the real subject of her
thoughts, he would not have come and stood in the doorway with her. He
would have left her to her dreams.
The whole forest world was wan and ghostly in the mysterious light. The
trees looked strange and dark, perspective was destroyed, the far
mountain gleamed. The streamers seemed to come from all directions, met
with the effect of collision in the sky, and filled the great dome with
uncanny light. Sometimes the flood of radiance would spread and flutter
in waves, like a great, gorgeous canopy stirred by the wind, and
fragments and balls of fire would spatter the breadth of the heavens.
As always, in the face of the great phenomena of nature, Bill was deeply
awed.
"We're not the only ones to see it," Virginia told him softly.
"Somewhere I think--I feel--that Harold is watching it too.
Somewhere over this snow."
Bill did not answer, and the girl turned to him in tremulous appeal.
"Won't you find him for me, Bill?" she cried. "You are so strong, so
capable--you can do anything, anything you try. Won't you find him
and bring him back to me?"
The man looked down at her, and his face was ashen. Perhaps it was only
the effect of the Northern Lights that made his eyes seem so dark and
strange.