Bill's eyes were considerably better when he wakened--full in the
daylight. The warm wet cloths had taken part of the inflammation out of
them, and when he strained to open the lids, he was aware of a little,
dim gleam of light. He couldn't make out objects, however, and except
for a fleeting shadow he could not discern the hand that he swept before
his face. Several days and perhaps weeks would pass before the full
strength of his sight returned.
His greatest hope at present was that he could grope his way about the
cabin and build a fire for Virginia. Whether she wished to get up or
not to-day, the growing chill in the room must be removed. He got up,
fumbled on the floor for such of his outer garments as Virginia had
removed, and after a world of difficulty managed to get them on. He was
amazingly refreshed by the night's sleep and Virginia's nursing. His
eyes throbbed, of course; his muscles were lame and painful, his head
ached and his arms and legs seemed to be dismembered, yet he knew that
complete recovery was only a matter of hours.
Building the fire, however, was a grievous task. He felt it incumbent
upon him to move with utmost caution so that Virginia would not waken.
By groping about the walls he encountered the stove. It was pleasantly
warm to his hands, and when he opened the door he found that hot coals
were still glowing in the ashes. Then he fumbled about the floor for
such fuel as Harold had provided.
He found a piece at last, and soon a cheery crackle told him that it had
ignited. He grinned with delight at the thought that he, almost stone
blind, had been able to build a fire in a room with a sleeping girl and
not waken her. But his joy was a trifle premature. At that instant he
tripped over a piece of firewood and his hands crashed against the logs.
"Oh, blast my clumsiness!" he whispered; then stood still as death to
see what had befallen. Virginia stirred behind her curtain.
"Is that you, Harold?" she asked.
She was wide awake, and further deception was unavailing. "No. It's
Bill."
"Well, what are you doing, up? Did Harold--do you mean to say you
built the fire yourself?"
"That's me, lady----"
"Then you must have your sight again----" The girl snatched aside the
curtain and peered into his face.
"No such luck. Coals were still glowing; all I had to do was put in a
piece of firewood. But I'm all well otherwise, as far as I can tell.
How about you?"
The girl stretched up her arms. "A little stiff--Bill, I've certainly
gained recuperative powers since I came up here. But, Heavens, I've had
bad dreams. And now--I want you to tell me just how this blindness of
yours--is going to affect our getting out."
It was a serious question, one to which Bill had already given much
thought. "I don't see how it can affect us a great deal," he answered
at last. "I realize you don't know one step of the way down to
Bradleyburg, and I can't see the way; but Harold knows it perfectly. Of
course if we had plenty of food the sensible thing to do would be to
wait--till I get back my sight. But you know--we haven't scarcely
any food at all. The last of the meat is gone, except one little piece
of jerky. We've got a cup or two of flour and one or two cans. Of
course there isn't enough to get down to the settlements on."
"Then we'll have to use the grizzly--after all?"
"Of course. Thank God we had him to fall back on. But even with him, I
don't think we ought to wait till I get back my sight. We might have
other delays, and perhaps another softening of the crust. It will be
pretty annoying--traveling on grizzly flesh--and pretty awkward to
have a blind man in the party, but--I'll be some good, anyway. Maybe
I can cut fuel."
The girl was deeply touched. It was so characteristic of this man that
even in his blindness he wished to make the difficulties of the journey
just as light as possible for her.
"I won't let you do a thing," she told him. "Harold and I can do the
work of camp."
"There won't be much to do, unfortunately; our camping will have to be
exceedingly simple. We'll take the sled full of blankets and grizzly
meat and what other little things we need. I don't see why you can't
ride on it, too--most of the way; the going is largely downhill and
the crust is perfect. We can skim along. At night we'll have to sleep
out--and not get much sleep, either--but by going hard, even on
snowshoes, we can make it through in three days--sleeping out just two
nights. Harold and I can build raging fires--he starting them and
helping me with the the fuel cutting. Oh, I know, Virginia, I won't be
much good on this trip--and those two nights will be pretty terrible.
We'll have to take turns in watching the fire. But with blankets around
our shoulders, acting as reflectors for the heat, we can get some rest."
"But you are sure Harold knows the way? I couldn't even get as far as
the river, and you are blind----"
"Harold knows the way as well as I do. I can mush all right, by hanging
on the gee-pole. It will be comparatively easy going; the brush is
covered with snow. The only thing that remains is to have Harold go
over and get a supply of the grizzly meat. Or, better still, since
he'll have to take the sled, we can pick it up on the way out. It's
frozen hard and won't take harm, and it's only a half mile out of our
way."
As if the invocation of his name were a magic summons, Harold opened the
door and entered. He carried Bill's loud-mouthed rifle in the hollow of
his arm.
"You've been hunting?" Virginia cried. She was pleased that this
sweetheart of hers should have risen so early in an attempt to secure
fresh meat for their depleted larder. It was wholly the manly thing to
do.
"Of course. I figured we needed meat. I carried Bill's rifle because I
don't trust the sights of mine. They were a yard off that day I shot at
the caribou."
"Did you see any game?"
Harold's eyes met hers an narrowed, ever so slightly. But his answer
was apt. "I saw a caribou--about two miles away. There didn't seem a
chance in the world to hit it, but considering our scarcity of meat, I
took that chance. Of course, I didn't hit within ten feet of him;
Bill's gun isn't built for such long ranges. I shot--four times."
Bill did not reply. He was thinking about those same four shots. It
was incomprehensible that they should have made such an impression upon
him.
"And for all that Bill hasn't got his sight back yet, we're going to
start down to-morrow," Virginia went on in a gay voice. She glanced
once at Bill, but she did not see the world of despair that came into
his face at the delight with which she spoke. "You and I will take
turns pulling the sled; Bill will hang on to the gee-pole. And Bill
says you know the way. We're going to dash right through--camp out
only two nights."
"I know the way all right," Harold answered. "What about food?"
"It's only a half-mile out of the way to Bill's mine. There we're going
to load the sled with grizzly meat."
It was in Harold's mind that their journey would be far different--down
to the Twenty-three Mile cabin and to the Yuga rather than over Grizzly
River. But for certain very good reasons he kept this knowledge to
himself. His lips opened to tell them that the wolves and coyotes
had already devoured the carcass of the bear; but he caught himself in
time. It would be somewhat hard to explain how he had learned that
fact, in the first place; and in the second, there was a real danger to
his plot if this revelation were made. Likely they would suggest that,
to conserve what little food they had, they start at once. The time had
not yet come to unfold this knowledge.
He nodded. The day passed like those preceding,--simple meals, a few
hours of talk around the fire, such fuel cutting as was necessary to
keep the cabin snug and to provide a supply for the night. This was
their last day in Clearwater,--and Virginia could hardly accept the
truth.
How untrue had been her gayety! In all the white lies of her past, all
the little pretenses that are as much a part of life in civilization as
buildings and streets, she had never been as false to herself as now.
She had never had to act a part more cruel,--that she could feel joy
at the prospect of her departure.
She could deceive herself no longer. The events of the previous day had
opened her eyes--in a small measure at least--and her thoughts
groped in vain for a single anticipation, a single prospect that could
lighten the overpowering weight of her sadness. And the one hope that
came to her was that strange sister of despair,--that back in her old
life, in her own city, full forgetfulness might come to her.
Wasn't it true that she would say good-by to the bitter cold and the
snow wastes? Was there no joy in this? Yet these same solitudes had
brought her happiness that, though now to be blasted, had been a
revelation and a wonder that no words could name or no triumphs of the
future could equal. The end of her adventure,--and she felt it might
as well be the end of her life. Three little days of bitter hardship,
Bill tramping at her side,--and then a long, dark road leading nowhere
except to barren old age and death.
Never again would she know the winter forest, the silence and the
mystery, and the wolf pack chanting with infinite sadness from the hill.
The North Wind, a reality now, would be a forgotten myth: she would
forget that she had seen the woodland caribou, quivering with
irrepressible vigor against the snowfields. The thrill, the
exhilaration of battle, the heat of red blood in her veins would be
strangers soon: the whole adventure would seem like some happy,
impossible dream. Never to hear a friendly voice wishing her good
morning, never a returning step on the threshold, the touch of a strong
hand in a moment of fear! She was aghast and crushed at the realization
that this man was going out of her life forever. She would leave him to
his forests,--their shadows hiding him forever from her gaze.
She found it hard to believe that she could fit into her old niche.
Some way, this northern adventure had changed the very fiber of her
soul. She could find no joy at the thought of the old gayeties she had
once loved, the beauty and the warmth. Was it not true that Harold
would go out beside her, the lover of her girlhood? His uncle would
start him in business; her course with him would be smooth. But her
hands were cold and her heart sick at the thought.
As the hours passed, the realization of her impending departure seemed
to grow, like a horror, in her thoughts. She still made her pathetic
effort to be gay. It would not do for these men to know the truth, so
she laughed often and her words were joyous. She fought back the tears
that burned in her eyelids. She could only play the game; there was no
way out.
She could conceive of no circumstances whereby her fate would be
altered. She knew now, as well as she knew the fact of her own life,
that she had been trapped and snared and cheated by a sardonic destiny.
For the moment she wished she had never fought her way back to the cabin
with Bill after yesterday's adventure, but that side by side in the
drifts, they had yielded to the Shadow and the cold.
Through the dragging hours of afternoon, Harold seemed restless and
uneasy. He smoked impatiently and was nervous and abstracted in the
hours of talk. But the afternoon died at last. Once more the shadows
lengthened over the snow; the dusk grew; the first, bright stars thrust
through the gray canopy above them. Virginia went to the work of
cooking supper,--the last supper in this little, unforgettable cabin
in the snow.
Both Bill and Virginia started with amazement at the sound of tapping
knuckles on the door. Harold's eyes were gleaming.