Bill only had to turn to see the snowy roof of the cabin, two hundred
yards away down the glade. Ordinarily his sharp eyes would have
discerned it long before: perhaps the same inner spirit, encountered
before this eventful day, was trying to protect him still. He turned
without a word, and no man could have read the expression on his
wind-tanned face. He mushed slowly on to his journey's end.
It was a new cabin, just erected, and smoke drifted faintly from its
chimney. Bill rapped on the door.
"Come along in," some one answered gruffly. Bill removed his snowshoes,
and the door opened before his hand.
He did not have to glance twice at the bearded face to know in whose
presence he stood. His inner senses told him all too plainly. Changed
as he was, there was no chance in heaven or earth for a mistake. This
was Harold Lounsbury, the same man who had passed his camp years before,
the same lost lover that Virginia had come to find.
Even now, Bill thought, it was not too late to withdraw. He could
pretend that he had came to quarrel in regard to his trapping rights.
After one glance he knew that, from the standard of good sense, there
was a full reason for withdrawal. In the years he might even reconcile
his own conscience to the act. Harold leaned forward, but he didn't get
up to meet him.
Bill scarcely noticed the man's furtive preparations for self-defense.
His rifle lay across his knees, and ostensibly he was in the act of
cleaning it, but in reality he was holding it ready for Bill's first
offensive move. He had known of Bill of old; in the circle in which he
moved--lost utterly to the sight of the men of Bradleyburg--there
were stories in plenty about this stalwart woodsman. For days--ever
since he had come here with his Indians and laid down his trap
line--he had dreaded just such a visit. The real reason for Bill's
coming did not even occur to him.
Bill saw that the man was frightened. His lips were loose, his eyes
nervous and bright, his hands did not hold quite steady. But all these
observations were at once obliterated and forgotten in the face of a
greater, more profound discovery. In one scrutinizing glance the truth
swept him like a flood. Here was one that the wilderness had crushed in
its brutal grasp. As far as Bill's standards were concerned, it had
broken and destroyed him.
This did not mean that his health was wasted. His body was strong and
trim: except for a suspicious network of red lines in his cheeks and a
yellow tinge to the whites of his eyes, he would have seemed in superb
physical condition. The evidence lay rather in the expression of his
face, and most of all in the surroundings in which he lived.
He had been, to some extent at least, a man of refinement and culture
when he had passed through Bill's camp so long ago. He had been
clean-shaven except for a small mustache; courteous, rather patronizing
but still friendly. Now he was like a surly beast. His eyes were
narrow and greedy,--weasel eyes that at once Bill mistrusted and
disliked. A scowl was at his lips, no more were they in a firm,
straight line. The light and glory of upright manhood, if indeed he had
ever possessed it, had gone from him now. He was a friend and a
companion of Joe and Pete: in a measure at least he was of their own
kind.
When the white man chooses to descend, even the savages of the forest
cannot keep pace with him. Bill knew now why Harold had never written
home. The wilderness had seized him body and soul, but not in the
embrace of love with which it held Bill. Obviously he had taken the
line of least resistance to perdition. He had forgotten the world of
men; in reality he was no longer of it. Bill read the truth--a
familiar truth in the North--in his crafty, stealthy, yet savage face.
He was utterly unkempt and slovenly. His coarse beard covered his lips,
his matted hair was dull with dirt, his skin was scarcely less dark than
that of the Indians themselves. The nails on his hands were foul; the
floor of the house was cluttered with rubbish and filth. It was a
worthy place, this new-built cabin! Even the desolate wastes outside
were not comparable with this.
Yet leering through his degeneracy, his identity could not be mistaken.
Here was the man Virginia had pierced the North to seek.
Harold removed his pipe. "What do you want?" he asked.
For a moment Bill did not answer. His thoughts were wandering afar. He
remembered, when Harold had passed his camp, there had been something
vaguely familiar, a haunting resemblance to a face seen long before.
The same familiarity recurred to him now. But he pushed it away and
bent his mind to the subject in hand. "You're Lounsbury, of course," he
said.
"Sure." This man had not forgotten his name, in the years that he was
lost to men. "I ask you again--what do you want?"
"You've been living on the Yuga. You came up here to trap in my
territory."
The man's hands stirred, ever so little, and the rifle moved on his
knees. "You don't own this whole country." Then he seemed to
take courage from Bill's impassive face. He remembered his stanch
allies--Pete and Joe. "And what if I did?"
"You knew I trapped here. You brought up Joe Robinson and a breed with
you. You meant to clean up this winter--all the furs in the country."