Dorothy slept late, and Pete cooked her a special breakfast when he
heard her stirring in the tent. She saw with relief that the worst of
the storm had passed during the night. There was not so great an
agitation of the clouds that streaked across the face of the heavens,
the rain had ceased, and the wind, though still brisk, was no longer a
gale. The waves, however, were still quite high, the aftermath of the
gale.
When Pete took the crude, tin eating utensils from her hand, he paused,
for a moment, uncertainly. “Mrs. Newhall, this camp is in need of fresh
meat,” he began rather shyly. “We may be here a few days yet, and a nice
venison would go pretty good. I’m wondering if you and Mr. Ishmin would
like to go into the interior with me, to-day, and see if we couldn’t get
a caribou. It would help to pass the time, and it might be interesting
to you.”
Dorothy glowed at the prospect. “I’d like it very much, Pete. Let’s ask
Ivan about it.”
But the musician, sprawled on his moss-bed and reading a pocket-size
novel in the original French, did not take so kindly to the suggestion.
“Not me to-day, Dorothy,” he protested. “There’ll be no pleasure for me
in tramping over that howling tundra. The wind’s still sharp enough so
that I want a fire and appreciate even such a lowly shelter as this.
Wait till a nice day and I’ll go gladly.”
The girl turned in some disappointment to Pete. “I guess that ends it,”
she told him.
The guide straightened, encouraged by her tone. “Yes—unless—unless
you’d care to go with me alone.” She thought she saw a very curious,
urgent appeal in his blue eyes. “I wouldn’t take you very far.”
He waited, hardly breathing, for her answer. She turned questioningly to
Ivan. The latter smiled dimly and nodded his head. “I don’t see why you
shouldn’t, if you want to,” he told her.
He spoke perfectly sincerely. It did not occur to him to be jealous in
the least of this lowly guide; his own pride, his confidence in Dorothy,
would not let him entertain such a thought. Jealousy of such a man as
this would have implied equality, and this his consciousness of his own
noble blood would not let him admit, even to himself. At the same time
he knew that this Anglo-Saxon was absolutely to be trusted. This was not
merely a belief with him; it was a conviction, the result of instinctive
understanding of the man and his race. Pete would have only respect for
his employer, in the fastnesses of the hills. It would likely have been
the same with Fortune Joe, the native; but he would never have thus put
temptation in the way of Nick Pavlof.
Yet an uneasy thought darkened his face, and he turned sharply to Pete.
“How far do you intend to go?”
“Not any farther than Mrs. Newhall desires,” was the answer, given with
some spirit. “I’m inclined to think we can pick up a caribou within a
mile.”
“You’ll be pretty lucky if you can. It’s not that there isn’t plenty of
game—Bradford told me that—but the country is enormous. Don’t go more
than two miles at the most—we might want to leave here in a hurry, and
don’t want to wait for you. Go ahead, Dorothy, if you like. If you want
to be a huntsman bold, I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”
“Then would you mind lending Mrs. Newhall your pistol?” Pete asked. “She
might want to take a shot at a ptarmigan, and this bear gun of mine
wouldn’t leave much bird.”
He spoke quietly, casually, but Dorothy did not misunderstand. At the
same instant she realized that this tall, rugged man of the opens
possessed those certain good manners, that unobtrusive consideration for
others, that is the ideal of good breeding. He made this request not to
furnish Dorothy an arm with which to shoot ptarmigan. Both she and Ivan
understood this in an instant. He wanted to save her any uneasiness when
she was alone with him in the wilds, simply to give her a deadly weapon
with which she could protect, in direst need, her own integrity. She was
caused to recall her own homeland of which chivalry is the tradition.
In the character of Pete the guide, this man had not been wholly able to
discard the South’s most treasured teaching. This was simply an instance
of the natural chivalry that was, in the last analysis, the chief trait
and the guiding light of the Georgian’s life. He could not be otherwise.
It was his birthright.
The two started away very happily together. Pete’s blue eyes danced; the
girl was flushed and eager, bent on adventure. He took her up the low
hill they had climbed the previous day, then down into the alder-grown
valley beyond.
Almost at once they began to see the wild life that redeems even such
barren, desolate lands as this. Ptarmigan flushed up, and instantly
Dorothy recognized them as the most graceful creatures she had ever seen
on wings. They had a way of mounting high, then dropping straight down,
light as thistledown, and their raucous cries filled the air.
“Would you like to try a crack at ’em?” Pete asked. “They’d go mighty
well for lunch.”
But Dorothy had no killing instinct, and she shook her head. “They’re
too pretty. Of course we’ll get some if we can’t find any big game.”
He led her through a break in the alders; and here they both halted to
watch a huge, snowshoe hare. It was a droll thing to see this creature
stand erect in the grass in an effort to see plainly out of his weak
eyes and to distinguish the nature of these tall, strange forms such as
he had never laid eyes upon before. He walked back and forth on his hind
legs, stretched to his full height. Then, remembering safety first—even
at the expense of his inordinate curiosity—he sped away.
Once Pete startled and halted her by an abrupt touch on the arm. “Stand
perfectly still,” he cautioned. “You’ll see the proof of something
Fortune Joe told me—that an animal can’t distinguish anything but a
moving object. It’s a fox—and by George, he’s got something in his
mouth.”
Down through the valley and straight toward them came Reynard, spreading
his beautiful brush and bearing a ptarmigan that had been the late prey
of his stealthy and ferocious cunning. It was amazing to the girl that
the animal—a large, splendid specimen of the Northern red fox—should
approach steadily within fifty yards before he so much as noticed them.
They were in plain sight in the open, but because they stood motionless
he simply did not see them.
He halted uneasily, turning his head to the right and left; then to get
a better look, and partly from simple preoccupation, he dropped the
grouse. It delighted the girl beyond words when he walked a few feet to
one side in an attempt to size up their breed. Not quite satisfied, he
started to trot away.
But he was not so frightened but that he returned to get his grouse. He
ran a few feet, then turned to look again. He was a beautiful thing,
burnished red; his step was indescribably delicate in the moss; and he
made, his game in his mouth and vivid on the hillside, an entrancing
picture. Having business elsewhere, he soon trotted away.
“It’s perfectly amazing,” the girl said, when she got her breath.
“Isn’t it! He simply couldn’t dope us out—and because we didn’t move we
didn’t register fear in his foxy mind. You see, Mrs. Newhall, animals
were developed without taking man into consideration, and that’s why man
is such a fatal enemy to them. They’re not prepared to contest man’s
power of reason. To them, things that do not move are not alive—except,
of course, when they can get a living scent. If the wind hadn’t been
blowing toward us instead of toward him, he wouldn’t have come within
hundreds of feet. As it was I think our dim smell—blown away though it
was—more than our appearance made him uneasy and kept him from getting
nearer. You see now why all the smaller animals, the weaker ones, have
developed the power to stand perfectly motionless—simply to avoid being
seen by the beasts of prey. And of course it never occurs to them that
man’s superior eyes, aided by his reason, can distinguish outline
without movement.”
Dorothy looked thoughtful. “I don’t believe I’ll ever care to take part
in a fox hunt again,” she said. “Of course, the fun of riding is
wonderful, but the idea of turning loose a pack of hounds on that
beautiful thing!” They sped on up the next hill and down into the
farther valley and to the bank of a small, swiftly flowing stream. There
were signs in plenty here of the wild life that thronged the region. She
saw tracks not only of fox and caribou, but a wolverine had trotted
along that way in the dawn; an otter had romped on the muddy bank; and,
at a crossing, she encountered a huge, almost triangular imprint that
might have been the track of some legendary man-eater of bygone ages.
The track was fully twelve inches long, and sharp claws had cut deeply
into the sand. “Nothing more or less than the great Kodiak bear,” Pete
explained. “Maybe you don’t know it, but this is just about the last
place in the world where the big Kodiak—whose hide is sometimes eleven
feet long—can still be found in any numbers. Can’t you fancy the old
warrior—booming along here looking for salmon?” But he was quick to
explain that even these huge beasts would run from human beings a
thousand times where once they would stand and fight; that, unlike the
Alaskan brown bears of farther east and the grizzlies of the mountains,
they were practically never known to make an unprovoked attack.
Thence they followed the stream clear up into the higher hills. The
stream itself constantly narrowed until it was merely a rivulet flowing
in a deeply-cut gully, far below them. Dorothy was thankful for her
sturdy training on court and golf green before she got halfway up that
long, steep-sloping ridge. She was active and athletic, yet she had to
stop every few minutes for breath.
“How far do you want to go?” she asked him in one of these rests.
“I hoped to go quite a little farther. We’re not more than a mile from
camp, and two miles is our limit. I’d rather hoped we could reach the
top of the ridge. Do you want to turn back?”
She looked up at the rocky backbone of the ridge that still towered
grandly above them—its imposing elevation manifest by scattered patches
of last winter’s snows—and then into Pete’s brown face. She hated to
give up when this tall guide of hers expected her to go on. She was a
sportswoman at heart, and she flashed him a smile.
“We’ll plug on up,” she told him.
They went on, and now the stream was but a silver thread far below them
in the dark gully, and the gully itself was crusted over at intervals by
last year’s snow. Sometimes they skirted alder thickets, sometimes
crossed wide grassless spaces where old bear tracks made irregular
depressions in the loose gravel and black, volcanic ash; but at last
they stood at the very windy crest of the ridge.
Almost at once Pete pointed out some curious white spots, not to be
noticed at all by a casual glance, in one of the adjacent valleys. These
were the caribou,—the veritable children of these mossy barrens.
They did not turn to the hunt at once. Dorothy needed rest before
attempting the difficult stalk at Pete’s side; so she seated herself on
a grand throne of rock in the gray cliff and overlooked the country.
This was ever a grim, merciless land, yet it had a quality of unearthly
beauty.
Far below her the wide barrens swept down to the blue sea. Behind, the
ridges mounted ever higher, with a queer effect of actual procession,
until at last the high, sharp, white peaks of the Aleutian Range stood
flashing against the cold, gray clouds. There was something pagan and
aboriginal about the place that she had not seen even in the uninhabited
wooded islands that she had skirted on the way through the Inside
Passage. Perhaps the very absence of the sheltering forests helped in
the effect. This land lay naked to the storm, the unbroken sweep of the
wind, and the snows that would soon overspread and deepen in a great,
white shroud of silence; bared to the cruel ravishment of the elements
and to the light of cold, winter stars; while in gentler lands the
punishment was borne by the tall, uplifted trees.
Other wildernesses had undergone a process of change and erosion that
this land had not shared. It was not merely a fancy with her: a
scientist could have told her that the far-flung Peninsula had indeed
lifted up from the sea but yesterday in comparison with the vast age of
the remainder of the continent. There was no reason why the lower hills
and valleys should not be clothed in hardy spruce other than that the
march of the forests had not yet reached here. The jagged peaks were not
yet worn down, the cliffs and rock ridges were sharp, unrounded by the
processes of nature; the whole tone of the mountains grim and defiant in
a way she could not name. This was a vista of the young world, soon
after it had taken form.
A savage place, as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover—
It would have been depressing, alone; and even the companionship of this
lowly guide cheered her and consoled her. It was in some way too much
for her; she felt inadequate to face it, in need of a strong, sustaining
arm. It was puzzling how companionable she felt with Pete; how she could
sit and dream in silence without feeling the absence of speech; how she
seemed to fall into his watchful, brooding mood. She was, for the
moment, perfectly at peace.
Soon after she began the long stalk toward the caribou herd, at Pete’s
side. They sped swiftly down into the valley, and then, taking shelter
behind a thicket of alder, moved straight toward the animals. The last
two hundred yards that would bring Pete into long-rifle range had to be
made with laborious stealth, taking advantage of every rise in ground
and walking in a tiring, stooped position. But they crawled at last to
the top of a low rise that marked the end of the stalk.
Lying prone in the deep moss they peered over the brow of the hill. It
was a very satisfying picture to Dorothy. The caribou are always
beautiful animals; and the setting of the green hillside, with the
heaven-reaching white peaks behind, showed them at their best. They were
just uneasy enough to give an image of unquenchable vitality: the bucks
tossing their huge, treelike antlers, the does timid for their fawns,
every head lifted, keen noses trying to catch a faint, unfamiliar scent.
The range, however, was about three hundred yards: a distance in which
kills are made often in hunters’ tales but rarely in hunting.
“If I’m going to have a chance, I’ve got to take a rest,” Pete
whispered. “I’m not an extra fancy shot—would you mind crawling around
in front?”
She obeyed instantly, every nerve keyed up by the excitement of the
chase, and it was quite like being a mighty nimrod herself to lie prone
on the moss and let Pete rest his rifle across her body. She was spent
by the long stalk, but she held her breath like a veteran while he took
aim.
And the wilderness gods granted him success. At the rifle’s sharp sound
a young buck—a shimmering, splendid creature with horns branched but
once—fell stone dead in the moss.
The reindeer leaped, milled an instant, then swept off through the
valley. The two hunters climbed down, and a few seconds later Pete drew
the keen blade of his hunting knife across the shaggy throat of the
fallen animal. The carcass was then drawn, the trim feet interlocked,
and Pete lifted the entire one hundred pounds on his broad back.
There was one further, minor adventure to that first day in the
wilds,—but not at all concerned with rifles and death. They reached the
bank of a narrow, swift stream; and Pete, who walked in front, came to
an abrupt halt.
He turned to her with no distinguishable expression on his bronzed face,
and she stared back in return. “We’ve really got to get across this
creek,” he told her. “And it’s too deep for your waterproof boots. How
do you think we can manage it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” The girl hid a faint smile. “It’s too bad you
don’t feel yourself capable of carrying me over.”
He plunged immediately into the stream, laid his venison on the opposite
bank, then came tramping back. He picked her up seemingly without
effort.
He chose his footing with scrupulous care, but she could not accuse him
of loitering. The rushing waters evidently taxed his strength greater
than she had guessed, for his nut-brown face looked somewhat drawn and
pale when he put her down.
It was only an incident of the trail, and it disturbed her that, as she
walked on toward camp, she could not get it out of her mind. It haunted
her that she had lain with such comfort, with such a sense of security,
on his broad chest; that somehow the moment had recalled the most dear,
the most treasured moments of her life. She could not deny to herself
that the wheel of her blood had turned at a faster gait and that her
nerves quickened; but it was a painful and embarrassing admission. It
did not please her that she could be moved, even vaguely and faintly, by
this crude, rough man of the barrens. Yet, somehow, she had been caused
to think of the lover of her girlhood. Memories, tender and dear, had
been quickened to life.
To Pete the moment had been of nothing less than glory. He too knew it
was only an adventure of the trail, that it was but the image of a
hopeless dream that must never—could never—come true; yet for an
instant it had lifted him, as with wings, out of the valley of the
shadow. Beauty and fragrance—a tenderness beyond thought—had been his
as the beloved burden filled his arms, as the icy water eddied about his
feet.