When the Chinook wind, moving northwest at a faster pace than the
waterfowl move south, struck the home cabin, Virginia's first thought
was for Bill. She heard it come, faint at first, then blustering, just
as Bill had heard it; she saw it rock down a few dead trees, and she
listened to its raging complaints at the window.
"I'll show you my might," it seemed to say. "You have dared my silent
places, come into my fastness, but now I will have revenge. I'll pay
you--in secret ways that you don't know."
It so happened that Harold's first thought was also of Bill. It was a
curious fact that his heart seemed to leap as if the wind had smitten
it. He knew what the Chinook could do to a snow crust. He estimated
that Bill was about halfway between the two cabins, and he didn't know
about the little, deserted cabin where Bill could find refuge during the
night. His eyes gleamed with high anticipations.
Harold's thought was curiously intertwined with the remembrance of the
dark cavern he had entered yesterday, the gravel laden with gold. If
indeed all things went as it seemed likely that they would go, Bill
would never carry the word of his find down to the recorder's office.
It was something to think of, something to dream about. Yellow
gold,--and no further trouble in seeking it. Such a development would
also save the labor of further planning. It was a friend of his, this
wind at the window.
"Won't this Chinook melt the snow crust?" Virginia asked him.
He started. He hadn't realized that this newfound sweetheart of his
knew the ways of Chinook winds and snow crusts. "Oh, no," he responded.
"Why should it? Wind makes crusts, not softens them."
Virginia was satisfied for the moment. Then her mind went back to
certain things Bill had told her on one of their little expeditions.
Strangely, she took Bill's word rather than Harold's.
"But this is a warm wind, Harold," she objected. "If the crust is
melted Bill can't possibly get through to his Twenty-three Mile cabin
to-night. What will he do?"
"He'll make it through. The crust won't melt that fast, if it melts at
all. He may have a long, hard tramp, though. Don't worry, Virginia,
he'll be coming in to-morrow night--with his back loaded with food."
"I only wish I hadn't let him go." The girl's tone was heavy and dull.
"But we have to have supplies----"
"We could have gone out on that grizzly meat. It was so foolish to risk
his life, and I had a presentiment too."
He was glad that she had had a presentiment. It tended to verify his
fondest dreams. But he laughed at her, and falling into one of his most
brilliant moods, tried to entertain her. Her interest was hard to hold
to-day. Her mind kept dwelling on Bill, mushing on through the
softening snow, and her eyes kept seeking the window.
She cooked lunch and burned every dish. Then, no longer able to deny
her own fears, she ventured out in the snow to test its crust. She put
on her snowshoes, starting a little way down Bill's trail. She was
white-faced and sick of heart when she returned.
"Harold, I'm worried," she cried. "I tried to walk in this snow--and
you can talk about Bill making it through all you want, but I won't
believe you. A hundred steps has tired me out."
He was beginning to be a little angry with her fears. And he made the
mistake of answering rather impatiently.
"Well, what can you do about it? he's gone, hasn't he, and we can't
call him back."
"I suppose not. But if I--we--were out there in that soft snow, and
he was here, he'd find something to do about it! He'd come racing out
there to us--bringing food an blankets----"
"Oh, he'd be a hero!" Harold scorned. "Listen, Virginia--there's
nothing in the world to fear. The Chinook sprang up at nine----"
"Oh, it was much later than that."
"I looked at my watch," the man lied. "He was only well started then;
he's woodsman enough to turn around and come back if there's danger.
You may see him before dark."
"I pray that I will! And if--if--anything has happened to him----"
All at once the tears leaped to her eyes. She couldn't restrain them
any more than the earth can constrain the rain. She turned into her own
curtained-off portion of the cabin so that Harold could not see.
The afternoon that followed was endlessly long, and lonely. Her heart
sank at the every complaint of the wind, and she dreaded the fall of the
shadows. Three times she thrilled with inexpressible joy at a sound on
the threshold, but always it was just the wind, mocking her distress.
She saw the sinister, northern night growing between the spruce trees,
and she dreaded it as never before. She cooked a meager supper--the
supplies were almost gone--but she had no heart to sit up and talk
with Harold. At last she went behind her curtain, hoping to forget her
fears in sleep.
All through the hours of early night she slept only at intervals:
dozing, coming to herself in starts and jerks, and dreaming miserably.
The hours passed, and still Bill did not return.
Her imagination was only too vivid. In her thoughts she could see this
stalwart woodsman of hers camping somewhere in the snowdrifts,
blanketless, staying awake through the bitter night to mend the fire,
and perhaps in trouble. She knew something of the northern cold that
was assailing him, hovering, waiting for the single instant when his
fire should go down or when he should drop off to sleep. Oh, it was
patient, remorseless. He was likely hungry, too, and despairing.
She wakened before dawn; and the icy, winter stars were peering through
the cabin window. Surely Bill had returned by now: yet it would hardly
be like him to come in and not let her know of his safe return. He had
always seemed so well to understand her fears, he was always so
thoughtful. There was no use trying to go back to sleep until she knew
for certain. She slipped from her bed onto the floor of the icy cabin.
She missed the cozy warmth of the fire; but, shivering, she slipped
quickly into her clothes. Then she lighted a candle and put on her
snowshoes. She mushed across the little space of snow to the men's
cabin.
The east was just beginning to pale: the stars seemed lucid as ever in
the sky. There was a labyrinth of them, uncounted millions that gleamed
and twinkled in every little rift between the spruce trees. Even the
stars of lesser magnitude that through the smoke of her native city had
never revealed themselves were out in full array to-night. And the icy
air stabbed like knives the instant she left the cabin door. It was the
coldest hour she had ever known.
She knocked on Harold's door, then waited for a reply. But the cabin
was ominously silent. Her fears increased: she knew that if Bill were
present he would have wakened at her slightest sound. He would have
seemed to know instinctively that she was there. She knocked again,
louder.
"Who's there?" a sleepy voice answered. Virginia felt a world of
impatience at the dull, drowsy tones. Harold had been able to sleep!
He wasn't worrying over Bill's safety.
"It's I--Virginia. I'm up and dressed. Did Bill come back?"
"Bill? No--and what in God's earth are you up this early for? Forget
about Bill and go back to bed."
"Listen, Harold," she pleaded. "Don't tell me to go back to bed. I
feel--I know something's happened to him. He couldn't have gone on
clear to the cabin in that awful snow; he either started back or camped.
In either case, he's in trouble--freezing or exhausted. And--and--I
want you to go out and look for him."
Harold was fully awake now, and he had some difficulty in controlling
his voice. In the first place he had no desire to rescue Bill. In the
second, he was angry and bitterly jealous at her concern for him. "You
do, eh--you'd like to send me out on a bitter night like this on a
fool's errand such as that. Where is there a cabin along the way--you'd
only kill me without helping him."
"Nonsense, Harold. You could take that big caribou robe and some food,
and if you had to camp out it wouldn't kill you. Please get up and go,
Harold." Her tone now was one of pleading. "Oh, I want you to----"
"Go back to bed!" But Harold remembered, soon, that he wasn't talking
to his squaw, and his voice lost its impatient note. "Don't worry about
Bill any more. He'll come in all right. I'm not going out on any
wild-goose chase like that--on a day such as to-day will be. You'll
see I'm right when you think about it."
"Think!" she replied in scorn. "If it were Bill he wouldn't stop to
think. He'd just act. You won't go, then?"
"Don't be foolish, Virginia."
Angry words rose in her throat, but she suppressed them. A daring idea
had suddenly filled her with wonder. It came full-grown: that she
herself should start forth into the snow deserts to find Bill herself.
Virginia had not been trained to self-reliance. Except for her northern
adventure, she had never been obliged to face difficulties, to care for
and protect herself, to work with her hands and do everyday tasks. To
build a fire, to repair a leaking tap, to take responsibility for
anything above such schoolday projects as amateur plays an social
gatherings would have seemed tasks impossible of achievement. At first
it had never occurred to her that she might herself be of aid to Bill.
The old processes of her mind still ran true to form; she had gone to
ask a man to carry out her wish. At first she had felt wholly helpless
at his refusal. But why should she not go herself?
If indeed Bill had reached the Twenty-three Mile cabin, he would be
mushing home by now; she would meet him somewhere on his snowshoe trail.
No harm would be done. It might even be a pleasant adventure to mush
with him in the snow. The snow itself was perfect for travel; and she
had learned that her strong young body was capable of long distances in
a day. And if he were in trouble she could help him.
It might mean building a fire in the snow and possibly camping out
through the day and night to come. It would be a dreadful and dangerous
experience, yet she saw no reason why she couldn't endure it. Bill had
showed her how to make the best of such a bad situation as this. He
had taught her how to build a fire in the snow; her round, slender
arms--made muscular in her weeks in the North--could cut fuel to keep
it burning. Besides, she would carry the caribou robe--one of the cot
coverings that Bill had stored in his cabin and which, though light as
down, was practically impervious to cold. Besides, there was no one
else to go.
She went swiftly to her cabin, put on her warmest clothing, and, as Bill
had showed her, rolled a compact pack for her back. She took a little
package of food--nourishing chocolate and dried meat--the whisky
flask that had been her salvation the night of the river experience, and
a stub of candle for fire-building, tying them firmly in the caribou
robe. The entire package weight only about ten pounds. She fastened it
on her shoulders, hung a camp ax at her belt; and as she waited for the
dawn, ate a hearty but cold breakfast. Then, with never a backward
look, she started away, down the dim, wind-blown, snowshoe trail.