"The queer thing is----" and Bill spoke quietly, slowly, "I'm not going
to do anything about it--now."
Harold's crafty eyes searched his face. He wondered if Bill was
afraid--some way it didn't fit into the stories that he had heard of him
that this woodsman should be afraid. But he might as well go on that
supposition as any other. "Maybe it's a good thing," he said. And for
an instant, something of his lost suavity of speech came back to him.
"Then to what--do I owe the honor of this visit?"
Bill sighed and straightened. The struggle within himself had, an
instant before, waged more furiously than ever. Why should he not leave
this man to his filthy cabin and his degeneracy and never let Virginia
know of their meeting? He wondered if such had been his secret plan,
concealed in the further recesses of his mind, when he had told her
to-day's expedition concerned his mine,--so that he could withdraw if
he wished. In this course most likely lay the girl's ultimate
happiness, certainly his own. He could steal back; no one would ever
know the truth. The man had sunk beneath her; even he, Bill, was more
worthy of her than this degenerate son of cities and culture.
Yet who was he to dare to take into his own hands the question of
Virginia's destiny? He had promised to bring her lost lover back to
her; the fact that he was no longer the man she had known could be only
a subterfuge to quiet his own conscience. Besides, the last sentence
that the man had spoken had been singularly portentous. For the instant
he had fallen into his own native speech, and the fact offered
tremendous possibilities. Could it be that the old days were not
entirely forgotten, that some of the virtues that Virginia had loved in
him still dwelt in his degenerate hulk, ready to be wakened again? He
had heard of men being redeemed. And all at once he knew his course.
So intent was he upon his thoughts that he scarcely heard the sound of
steps in the snow outside the cabin door, then the noise of some one on
the threshold in the act of removing snowshoes.
The task that confronted him now was that, no more and no less, to which
he had consecrated his life,--to bring happiness to the girl he loved.
There was work to do with this man. But even yet he might be redeemed;
with Bill's aid his manhood might return to him. His own love for the
girl tore at his heart, the image of his life stretched lonely and drear
before him, yet he could not turn aside.
"I didn't come to see you about trapping. I came--about Virginia
Tremont."
His eyes were on Harold's face, and he saw the man start. He had not
forgotten the name. Just for an instant his face was stark pale and
devoid of expression. "Virginia!" he cried. "My God, what do you know
about her?"
But he didn't wait the answer. All at once he looked, with an annoyance
and anxiety that at first Bill could not understand, toward the door of
the cabin. The door knob slightly turned.
Bill wheeled, with a sense of vast and impending drama. Harold swore, a
single brutal oath, then laughed nervously. An Indian squaw--for all
her filth an untidiness a fair representative of her breed--pushed
through the door and came stolidly inside. She walked to the back of
the cabin and began upon some household task.
Bill's face was stern as the gray cliffs of the Selkirks when he turned
again to Harold. "Is that your woman?" he asked simply.
Harold did not reply. He had not wished this man, emissary from his old
acquaintances of his native city, to know about Sindy. He retained that
much pride, at least. But the answer to Bill's question was too
self-evident for him to attempt denial. He nodded, shrugging his
shoulders.
Bill waited an instant; and his voice when he spoke again was singularly
low and flat. "Did you marry her?"
Harold shrugged again. "One doesn't marry squaws," he replied.
Once more the silence was poignant in the wretched cabin. "I came to
find Harold Lounsbury, a gentleman," Bill went on in the same strange,
flat voice, "and I find--a squaw man."
* * * * *
Bill realized at once that this new development did not in the least
affect his own duty. His job had been to find Harold and return him to
Virginia's arms. It was not for him to settle the girl's destiny. For
all he had spent his days in the great solitudes of nature he knew
enough of life to know that women do not give their love to angels.
Rather they love their men as much for their weaknesses as for their
virtues. This smirch in Harold's life was a question for the two of
them to settle between them.
It did, however, complicate the work of regeneration. Bill had known
squaw men before, and few of them had ever regenerated. Usually they
were men that could not stand the test of existence by their own toil:
either from failure or weakness they took this sordid line of least
resistance. From thence on they did not struggle down the trap line in
the bitter winter days. They laid comfortably in their cabins and their
squaws tended to such small matters. It was true that the squaws wore
out quickly; sometimes they needed beating, and at about forty they
withered and died, or else the blizzard caught them unprotected in the
forest,--and then it became necessary to select another. This was an
annoyance, but not a tragedy. One was usually as faithful and as
industrious as another.
It was perfectly evident that Sindy had been at work setting out traps.
Bill stared at the woman and for the moment he did not see the little
sparks growing to flame in Harold's eyes.
"What did you say?" he asked, menacing. He had caught a word that has
come to be an epithet in the North.
But by taking it up Harold made a severe strategical error. Bill had
never hesitated, by the light of an ancient idiom, to call a spade a
spade. Also he always had good reasons before he took back his words.
"I said," he repeated clearly, "that I'd found--a squaw man."
Harold's muscles set but immediately relaxed again. He shrugged once.
"And is it anybody's business but my own?" he asked.
"It hadn't ought to be, but it is," was the answer. "It's my business,
and somebody else's too." he turned to the woman. "Listen, Sindy, and
give me a polite answer. You're Joe Robinson's sister, aren't you?"
The Indian looked up, nodded, then went back to her work.
"Then you left Buckshot Dan--to come here and live with this white
man?"
Harold turned to her with a snarl. "Don't answer him, Sindy. It's none
of his business." Then his smoldering eyes met Bill's. "Now we've
talked enough. You can go."
"Wait!" Something in the grave face and set features silenced the squaw
man. "But it's true--we have talked just about enough. I've got one
question. Lounsbury--do you think, by any chance--you've got any
manhood left? Do you think you're rotten clear through?"
Harold leaped then, savage as a wolf, and his rifle swung in his arms.
Instantly Bill's form, impassive before, seemed simply to waken with
life. There was no rage in his face, only determination; but his arm
drove out fast as a serpent's head. Seemingly with one motion he
wrenched the gun from the man's hand and sent him spinning against the
wall.
Before even his body crashed against the logs, Bill had whirled to face
the squaw. He knew these savage women. It would be wholly in character
for her whip a gleaming knife from her dress and spring to her man's
aid. But she looked up as if with indifference, and once more went back
to her work.
Bill was considerably heartened. At least he didn't have to deal with
the savage love that sometimes the Indian women bore the whites. Sindy
was evidently wholly indifferent to Harold's fate. The match obviously
had not been a great success.
For an instant Harold lay still, crumpled on the floor; then his
bleeding hands fumbled at his belt. Once more Bill sprang and snatched
him to his feet. The holster, however, was empty.
"No more of that," Bill cautioned. The man's eyes smoldered with
resentment, but for the moment he was cowed. "Before you start anything
more, hear what I've got to offer you." His voice lowered, and the
words came rather painfully. "It's your one chance, Lounsbury--to
come back. Virginia Tremont has come into the North, looking for you.
She's at my camp. She wants to take you back with her."
Lounsbury's breath caught with a strange, sobbing sound. "Virginia--up
here?" he cried. "Does she know about--this----" He indicated the
cabin interior, and all it meant, with one sweep of his arm.
"Of course not. How could she? Whether you tell her or not is a matter
for you and she to decide. She's come to find you--and bring you
back."
"My God! To the States?"
"Of course."
For the instant the black wrath had left his face, and his thought swung
backward to his own youth,--to the days he had known Virginia in a
far-off city. He was more than a little awed at this manifestation of
her love. He supposed that she had forgotten him long since and had
never dreamed that she would search for him here.
Once more the expression of his face changed, and Bill couldn't have
explained the wave of revulsion that surged through him. He only knew a
blind desire to tear with his strong fingers those leering lips before
him. Harold was lost in insidious speculations. He remembered the
girl's beauty, the grace and litheness of her form, the holy miracle of
her kisses. Opposite him sat his squaw,--swarthy, unclean, shapeless,
comely as squaws go but as far from Virginia as night was from day.
Perhaps it wasn't too late yet----
But at that instant he heard the East Wind on the roof, and he recalled
that the old problem of existence faced him still. He had solved it up
here. His cabin was warm, he was full-fed; the squaw grubbed his living
for him out of the frozen forests. He did not want to be forced to face
the competition of civilized existence again. He was dirty, care-free;
his furs supplied food and clothes for him and certain rags for her, and
filled his cupboard with strong drink. He remembered that the girl had
had no money, and that he had come first to the North to find gold. If
he had succeeded, if his poke were heavy with the yellow metal, he could
go back to his city and take up his old life anew, but he couldn't begin
at the bottom. With wealth at his command he might even find a more
desirable woman than Virginia: perhaps the years had changed her even as
himself. There was no need of dreaming further about the matter. Only
one course, considering the circumstances, lay before him.
"You're very kind," he said at last. "But I won't go. Tell her you
didn't find me."
Bill straightened and sighed. "Make no mistake about that, Lounsbury,"
he answered. "You're going with me--" and then he spoke softly, a pause
between each word--"if I have to drag you there through the snow. I
was told to bring you back, and I'm going to do it."
"You are, eh?" Harold scowled and tried to find courage to attack this
man again. Yet his muscles hung limp, and he couldn't even raise his
eyes to meet those that looked so steadfastly at him now.
"Sindy can go home to Buckshot Dan. He'll take her back--you stole
her from him. And you, Lounsbury, rotten as you are, are coming with
me. God knows I hope she'll drive you from her door; but I'm going to
bring you, just the same."
Harold's eyes glowed, and for the moment his brain was too busy with
other considerations openly to resent the words. Then his face grew
cunning. It was all plain enough: Bill loved Virginia himself. Through
some code of ethics that was almost incredible to Harold, he was willing
to sacrifice his own happiness for hers. And the way to pay for the
rough treatment he had just had, treatment that he couldn't, at present
at least, avenge in kind, was to win the girl away from him. The thing
was already done. She loved him enough to search even the frozen realms
of the North for him: simply by a little tenderness, a little care, he
could command her to love to the full again. The fact that Bill wanted
her made her infinitely more desirable to him.
"You won't tell her--about Sindy?"
"Not as long as you're decent. That's for you to settle for
yourself--whether she finds out about her."
Harold believed him. While he himself would have used the smirch as a
weapon against his rival, he knew that Bill meant what he said. "I'll
go," he announced. "If she's at the Gray Lake cabin, we've got plenty
of time to make it before dark."