Kitabı oku: «The Huntress», sayfa 15

Naturally the other men were delighted.

"Good for you, Bela!" they cried. "You're a game sport, all right! You're right; they're not worth bothering about. We'll stand by you!"

She seemed unimpressed by their enthusiasm.

"Time to go," she said, shepherding them toward the door. "Come to-morrow. I have ver' good dinner to-morrow."

"You bet I'll be here!" "Count on me!" "Me, too!" "You're all right, Bela!" "Good night!" "Good night!"

They filed out.

Only Musq'oosis was left sitting on the floor, staring into the fire. He did not turn around as Bela came back from the door.

"Why don't you go, too?" she demanded in a harsh, tremulous voice.

"T'ink maybe you want talk to me."

"Talk!" she cried. "Too moch talk! I sick of talkin'!" Her voice was breaking. "Go 'way! Let me be!"

He got up. He had dropped his innocent affectations. "My girl – " he began simply.

"Go 'way!" cried Bela desperately. "Go quick, or I hit you!"

He shrugged and went out. Bela slammed the door after him and dropped the bar in place. She barred the other door.

She looked despairingly around the disordered cabin, and moving uncertainly to the nearest box, dropped upon it, and spreading her arms on the table, let her head fall between them and wept like a white woman.

CHAPTER XXIII
MAHOOLEY'S INNINGS

The next day, as far as the settlement was concerned, Sam Gladding had ceased to be. Bringing the team to Bela's as he had promised, he left it tied outside, and the night had swallowed him.

At first it was supposed he had started to walk out around the north shore, the way he had come; but Indians from below Grier's Point reported that no white man had passed that way. They found likewise that he had not gone toward Tepiskow. He could not have crossed the river, save by swimming, an impossible feat burdened with a rifle and an axe.

Those who came in from around the bay said he had not been seen over there, though Joe Hagland had barricaded himself in his shack in the expectation of a visit.

It was finally decided that Sam must be hiding in the bush somewhere near, and that he would come in with his tail between his legs when he got hungry.

There was not much concern one way or the other. Most of the men indulged in the secret hope that Sam would stay away. He was a game kid, they were now ready to confess, but altogether too touchy; there was no getting along comfortably with him. Had he not almost put the resteraw out of business? It was as Bela said – if both the hotheads kept out of the way, they might have some peace and comfort there.

Sergeant Coulson had compunctions. He proposed getting up a search-party for Sam. The idea was laughed down. Nice fools they'd make of themselves, opined Mahooley, setting out to look for a man in good health and in the full possession of his faculties who hadn't committed any crime.

There was a good attendance at Bela's dinner, and a full house at night. To their undiscerning eyes Bela seemed to be her old self. That is to say, she was not moping over what had happened. A wise man would have guessed that she was taking it much too quietly; he would have seen the danger signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed anxious to please. She smiled on each man in a way that bade him hope. She laughed oftener and louder. It had a conscious, provocative ring that the wise man would have grieved to hear. Competition became keen for her smiles.

When they finished their supper there were loud calls for her to come in and sit among them. Bela shrugged and, picking up a box, stood looking over them. They fell suddenly silent, wondering which she would choose. She laughed mockingly and, turning, carried her box in front of the fire.

From this point Mahooley, in the midst of the general chaffing, unexpectedly received a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder that went to his head a little. He promptly arose and carried his box to her side. Mahooley was the greatest man present, and none presumed to challenge him.

Bela bridled and smiled. "What for you come over here?" she demanded. "I not tell you to."

"Oh, I took a chance," said the trader coolly. At the same time his wicked, dancing little eyes informed her that he knew very well she had asked him over. The sanguine Mahooley was no celibate, and he cared not who knew it.

"You think 'cause you the trader you do w'at you like," said Bela mockingly.

"Any man can do pretty near what he wants if he has the will."

"What is will?"

"Oh – determination."

"You got plenty 'termination, I suppose." This with a teasing smile.

Mahooley looked at her sharply. "Look here, what are you getting at?" he demanded.

"Not'ing."

"I'm no hand to bandy words. I'm plain spoken. I go direct to a thing."

Bela shrugged.

"You can't play with me, you know. Is there anything you want?"

"No," said Bela with a provoking smile.

As Mahooley studied her, looking into the fire, a novel softness confused him. His astuteness was slipping from him, even while he bragged of it. "Damned if you're not the handsomest thing in this part of the world!" he said suddenly. It was surprised out of him. His first maxim was: "A man must never let anything on with these girls."

"Pooh! W'at you care about 'an'some?" jeered Bela. "Girls all the same to you."

This flecked Mahooley on the raw. A deep flush crept into his face. "Ah, a man leads a man's life," he growled. "That ain't to say he don't appreciate something good if it comes his way."

"They say you treat girls pretty bad," said Bela.

"I treat 'em as they deserve," replied Mahooley sullenly. "If a girl don't get any of the good out of me, that's up to her."

It was the first time one of these girls had been able to put him out of countenance.

"Poor girls!" murmured Bela.

He looked at her sharply again. The idea that a native girl might laugh at him, the trader, was a disconcerting one. "Some time when the gang ain't around I'll show you I ain't all bad," he said ardently.

Bela shrugged.

Musq'oosis was in the shack again to-night. He sat on the floor in the corner beyond the fire-place. Neither Bela nor Mahooley paid any attention to him, but he missed nothing of their talk.

By and by the group around the table moved to break up.

"I'll go with them and come back after," whispered Mahooley.

"No you don't," said Bela quickly. "W'en they go I lock the door. Both door."

"Sure! But it could be unlocked for a friend."

"Not for no man!" said Bela. "Not to-night any'ow," she added with a sidelong look.

"You devil!" he growled. "Don't you fool yourself you can play with a man like me. A door has got to be either open or shut."

"Well, it will be shut – to-night," she said, with a smile dangerous and alluring.

When they had gone she sent Musq'oosis also.

"Not want talk?" he asked wistfully.

She laughed painfully and harshly.

"I your good friend," he said.

"Go to bed," she returned.

He waited outside until he heard her bolt both doors. For an hour after that he sat within the door of his tepee with the flap up, watching the road. Nothing stirred on it.

Bela had obtained Gilbert Beattie's permission to keep her team in the company's stable for the present. After breakfast next morning, without saying anything to anybody, Musq'oosis climbed the hill and hitched Sambo and Dinah to the wagon. Taking a native boy to drive, he disappeared up the road. He was gone all day.

Bela was setting the table for supper when he came in. With an elaborate affectation of innocence he went to the fire to warm his hands.

"Where you been?" she demanded, frowning.

"Drivin'."

"Who tell you tak' the horses?"

"Nobody."

"Those my horses!" she said stormily.

Musq'oosis shrugged deprecatingly. "Horses go out. Get wicked in stable all tam."

"All right," said Bela. "I say when they go out."

"W'at's the matter?" asked Musq'oosis mildly. "Before w'at is mine is yours, and yours is mine."

"All right. Don't tak' my horses," Bela repeated stubbornly.

Musq'oosis sat down by the fire. Bela rattled the cups to justify herself. The old man stole a glance at her, wondering how he could say what he wished to say without bringing about another explosion.

"For why you mad at me?" he asked finally.

"You mind your business!" Bela cried passionately. "Keep out of my business. I know where you been to-day. You been lookin' for Sam. Everybody t'ink I send you look for Sam. That mak' me mad. I wouldn't go to Sam if he was bleed to death by the road!"

"Nobody see me," said Musq'oosis soothingly.

"Everyt'ing get known here," she returned. "The trees tell it."

"I know where he is," Musq'oosis murmured with an innocent air.

Bela made a clatter among the dishes.

After a while he said again: "I know where he is."

Bela, still affecting deafness, flounced into the kitchen.

She did not come back until the supper guests were arriving.

With a glance of defiance toward Musq'oosis, Bela welcomed Mahooley with a sidelong smile. That, she wished the Indian to know, was her answer. The red-haired trader was delighted. To-night the choicest cuts found their way to his plate.

When she was not busy serving, Bela sat on a box at Mahooley's left and suffered his proprietary airs. Afterward they sat in front of the fire, whispering and laughing together, careless of what anybody might think of it.

This was not particularly entertaining to the rest of the crowd, and the party broke up early.

"Bela is changed," they said to each other.

At the door Stiffy said, as a matter of form: "Coming, Mahooley?"

Mahooley, glancing obliquely at the inscrutable Bela, decided on a bold play.

"Don't wait for me," he said. "I'll stop and talk to Bela for a while. Musq'oosis will play propriety," he added with a laugh.

Bela made no remark, and the shack emptied except for the three of them. Mary Otter had gone to call at the mission.

For a while Mahooley passed the time in idly teasing Musq'oosis after his own style.

"Musq'oosis, they tell me you were quite a runner in your young days."

"So," said the old man good-humouredly.

"Yes, fellow said when the dinner-bell rang in camp, you beat the dog to the table!"

Mahooley supplied the laughter to his own jest.

"Let him be," said Bela sullenly.

"Don't mak' stop," observed Musq'oosis, smiling. "I lak hear what fonny thoughts come in his head."

Mahooley glanced at him narrowly, suspecting a double meaning.

When the rumble of the last wagon died away in the distance, Mahooley said carelessly: "Well, Musq'oosis, you know the old saying: 'Two is company, three is none.'"

Musq'oosis appeared not to have understood.

"In other words, your room is preferred to your company."

Musq'oosis did not budge from the position of the squatting idol. His face likewise was as bland and blank as an image's.

"Oh, in plain English, get!" said Mahooley.

"Go to your teepee," added Bela shortly.

Musq'oosis sat fast.

Mahooley jumped up in a rage. "This is a bit too thick! Get out before I throw you out!"

Musq'oosis, with the extraordinary impassivity of the red race, continued to stare before him. Mahooley, with an oath, seized him by the collar and jerked him to his feet. This was too much for Bela. Her hard air broke up. Jumping to her feet, she commenced to belabour Mahooley's back with her fists.

"Let him go! Let him go!" she commanded.

Mahooley dropped the old man and turned around astonished. "What's the matter with you? You told him yourself to go."

"I don't care," said Bela. "Now I want him stay."

"What do you think I am?" cried Mahooley. "I don't want no third party present when I call on a girl."

She shrugged indifferently. "It wouldn't do you no good to put him out. I got not'ing for you. Not to-night."

Mahooley seized her wrist. "My God, if you think you're going to play fast and loose – "

Bela smiled – scornfully, unafraid, provoking. "W'at you t'ink?" she said. "I not same lak those girls down by your place. They come w'en you whistle. I come when I ready. Maybe I never come."

There was a battle between their eyes. "You need a master!" cried Mahooley.

Her eyes glowed with as strong a fire as his. "You can't get me easy as them," said Bela.

Mahooley laughed and dropped her wrist. "Oh, you want a bit of wooing!" he cried. "All right. You're worth it."

Bela changed her tactics again. She smiled at him dazzlingly. "Go now. Come to-morrow."

He went willingly enough. He did not know it, but he was well on the way of being tamed.

"Go!" said Bela to Musq'oosis.

"I got talk to you," he said.

"Talk! Talk!" cried Bela irritably. "You bus' my head open wit' your talk. I had enough talk. Go to bed."

"No, to-night I goin' stay," said Musq'oosis calmly. "I your fat'er's friend, I your friend. I see you goin' to the bad. I got say somesing, I guess."

Bela laughed harshly. "Bad! Ol' man talk! What is bad? Everything is bad!"

"Mahooley is bad to women," said Musq'oosis.

"I know that. He can't hurt me. Because I hate him. I goin' mak' a fool of him. You see."

"Mahooley never marry you," said the old man.

"Marry me if I want," said Bela defiantly. "I got him goin' already. But I not want marry him. Not marry no man, me! When you marry a man, you his slave. Always I goin' live in my house and have men come see me. Men are fools. I do w'at I like wit' 'em."

"That is bad talk," said Musq'oosis.

"All right!" cried Bela passionately. "I goin' be bad woman now. I lak that. I am good woman before. W'at do I get? I get throw down. I get cursed. Now I goin' be bad! I have a fire inside me burn me up lak dry grass. I got do somesing. I goin' be moch bad. Everybody talk about me. Men fight for me! I am handsome. What's the use bein' good? I not goin' cry again. I goin' laugh and have some fun now!"

Musq'oosis let it all come out before he spoke. When his opportunity came he said calmly: "You are a big fool. You don't know w'at's the matter wit' you."

She fell into his trap. "W'at is the matter wit' me?" she demanded sullenly.

"Sam!" he said scornfully. "I tell you before. You what they call in love wit' Sam. It is the white woman's sickness."

Bela gazed at him a moment in white silence. Her tongue was unable to convey its load of anger. She flung her arms up helplessly.

"Love him!" she stammered. "I hate him! I hate him! I am burning with my hate! I – I can't say it! I lak see Joe strike him down. I lak see the men mak' mock of him. I would laugh. That mak' me feel little better."

Musq'oosis shrugged.

"Maybe before I love him," she went on passionately. "I want be friends. I want help him because he poor. Always I am think how can I help him, not mak' him mad. I buy horses for him. I come here so I feed him good and mak' him strong. W'at he do for me? He shame me! Twice he shame me before all the people! He throw me away lik' dirt. Now, all my good feeling is turn bad inside. I hate him!"

Tears poured down her cheeks, and sobs choked her utterance. Fearful that he might misunderstand these evidences, she cried: "I not cry for sorry. I cry for hate!"

Again Musq'oosis waited patiently until she was in a state to hear him.

"Sam gone to Spirit River," he said calmly.

"I don' care!" cried Bela. "He can't go too far from me!"

"Maybe he sorry now," suggested the old man.

"Not sorry him!" cried Bela. "He not care for nobody. Got hard heart!"

"If you let me tak' team I lak go see him."

Bela stared at him full of excitement at the idea, but suspicious.

"W'at you want see him for?"

"Maybe I bring him back."

"Don' you tell him I want him back," she said. "I hate him!"

"Can I tak' horses?"

"Yes," she cried suddenly. "Go tell Sam I crazy 'bout Mahooley. Tell him I gone wit' Mahooley. He rich. Give me ev'ryt'ing I want."

"I not tell Sam that kind of stuff," returned Musq'oosis scornfully.

"It is truth," she insisted sullenly. "I goin' all right."

"If Sam come back sorry you feel bad you gone wit' Mahooley."

"No, I glad!" she cried passionately. "I hope he want me when it is too late. I want turn him down. That mak' me feel good."

Musq'oosis debated with himself. It was a difficult case to deal with.

"Tak' the team," said Bela. "Tell Sam all I say."

The old man shook his head. "W'at's the use if you goin' wit' Mahooley, anyway? You wait a while. Maybe I bring him back. Mak' say him sorry."

Bela hesitated. Angry speech failed her, and her eyes became dreamy. In spite of herself, she was ravished by the picture of Sam at her feet, begging for forgiveness.

"Well, maybe I wait," she said.

Musq'oosis followed up his advantage. "No," he said firmly. "Not lak travel in wagon, me. Mak' my bones moch sore. I am old. I not go wit'out you promise wait."

"Not wait all tam," declared Bela.

"Six days," suggested Musq'oosis.

She hesitated, fighting her pride.

"If you go wit' Mahooley, Sam get a white wife," went on Musq'oosis carelessly. "Maybe him send letter to chicadee woman to come back."

"All right," said Bela with an air of indifference, "I promise wait six days. I don' want go wit' Mahooley before that, anyhow."

They shook hands on it.

CHAPTER XXIV
ON THE SPIRIT RIVER

The sun looked over the hills and laid a commanding finger on Sam's eyelids. He awoke, and arose from under the little windbreak he had made of poplar branches.

Before him rolled a noble green river with a spruce-clad island in the middle, stemming the current with sharp prow like a battleship. On the other side rose the hills, high and wooded. More hills filled the picture behind him on this side, sweeping up in fantastic grass-covered knolls and terraces.

The whole valley up and down, bathed in the light of early morning, presented as fair a scene as mortal eyes might hope to behold.

Sam regarded it dully. He looked around him at the natural meadow sloping gently up from the river-bank to the grassy hills behind, a rich field ready to the farmer's hand and crying for tilth, and he said to himself, "This is my land," but there was no answering thrill. Life was poisoned at its source.

He had walked for three days borne up by his anger. His sole idea was to put as much distance as possible between him and his fellow-men. He chose to trail to Spirit River, because that was the farthest place he knew of.

Each day he walked until his legs refused to bear him any longer, then lay down where he was in his blankets and slept. The day-long, dogged exercise of his body and the utter weariness it induced drugged his pain.

His gun kept him supplied with grouse and prairie chicken, and he found wild strawberries in the open places and mooseberries in the bush.

Bread he went without until he had the luck to bring down a moose. Returning to an Indian encampment he had passed through, he traded the carcass for a little bag of flour and a tin of baking-powder.

His sufferings were chiefly from thirst, for he was crossing a plateau, and he did not know the location of the springs.

Excepting this party of Indians, he met no soul upon the way. For the most part the rough wagon trail led him through a forest of lofty, slender aspen-trees, with snowy shafts and twinkling, green crowns.

There were glades and meadows, carpeted with rich grass patterned with flowers, and sometimes the road bordered a spongy, dry muskeg.

All the country was flat, and Sam received the impression that he was journeying on the floor of the world. Consequently, when he came without warning to the edge of a gigantic trough, and saw the river flowing a thousand feet below, the effect was stunning.

At any other time Sam would have lingered and marvelled; now, seeing some huts below, he frowned and thought: "I'll have to submit to be questioned there."

This was Spirit River Crossing. The buildings consisted of a little company store, a tiny branch of the French outfit, kept by a native, and the police "barracks," which housed a solitary corporal.

The coming of a white man was an event here, and when Sam got down the hill the company man and the policeman made him heartily welcome, glancing curiously at the slenderness of his outfit. They wanted to hear the latest news of the settlement, and Sam gave it, suppressing only the principal bit. He left that to be told by the next traveller.

In the meantime he hoped to bury himself farther in the wilderness. As soon as he told his name Sam saw by their eyes that they were acquainted with his earlier adventures. Everything is known up north.

In answer to Sam's questions, they informed him there was first-rate bottom-land fifteen miles up the river on the other side. This was the famous Spirit River land, eighteen inches of black loam on a sandy subsoil.

A white man, Ed Chaney, had already squatted on a piece of it, a lonely soul. There were some Indians nearer in.

Naturally, they were keen to know what Sam had come for. The last time they had heard of him he was a freighter. His reticence stimulated their curiosity.

"Come to look over the land before you bring your outfit in, I suppose?" suggested Sollers, the trader.

"No, I'm going to stop," said Sam.

"How are you going to farm with an axe and a gun?"

"I'll build me a shack, and hunt and fish till I have a bit of luck," said Sam.

The two exchanged a look which said either this young man was concealing something or he hadn't good sense.

"Luck doesn't come to a man up here," said the trader. "Nothing ever happens of itself. You've got to turn in and make it."

Declining invitations to stop a night or a few days, or all summer, Sam got the trader to put him across the river in a canoe. There was also a scow to transport heavier loads. Landing, he turned up-stream. Their description of the utter lonesomeness of that neighbourhood had appealed to him.

The sun was growing low when he spied a little tent in the meadow, rising from the river. The faint trail he was following ended at the gate of a corral beside it. There was a cultivated field beyond. These objects made an oddly artificial note in a world of untouched nature. At the door of the tent stood a white man, gazing. A shout reached Sam's ears. He was lucky in his man. Though he and Ed Chaney had had but the briefest of meetings when the latter passed through the settlement, Ed hailed him like a brother. He was a simple soul, overflowing with kindness.

"Hello! Hello!" he cried. "Blest if I didn't think you was a ghost! Ain't seen one of my own colour since I come. Gee! a fellow's tongue gets rusty for the lack of wagging. Come on in. Ain't got much to show, but what there is is yours. I'll have supper for you in two shakes. It certainly was white of you to come on to me for the night."

Ed seemed to see nothing strange in Sam's situation, nor was he in the least curious concerning the gossip of the country. This comforted Sam strangely. Ed was a little, trim, round-headed man, with a cropped thatch of white, and dancing brown eyes. Sixty years had in nowise impaired his vigour. He was an incorrigible optimist and a dreamer.

His long-pent tongue ran like a mechanical toy when the spring is released. He had a thousand schemes for the future, into all of which, as a matter of course, he immediately incorporated Sam. Sam had come to be his partner. That was settled without discussion. Sam, weary in body and mind, was content to let somebody run him.

"West of me, on the other side of the gully yonder, there's another handsome piece of land. Slopes down from the hills to the river-bank smooth as a lady's bosom! Not a stick on it, either; all ready to turn over. Now you take that and put up a shack on it, and we'll work the two pieces together with my tools.

"In the meantime, till you get a little ahead, you work for me for wages, see? I've got my crop in, all right – potatoes and barley; now I've got to build me a house. I need help with it. I'll pay you in grub."

"That certainly is decent of you," murmured Sam.

"Cut it out!" cried Ed. "A man has got to have a partner. Say, in a month already I'm near gibbering with the lonesomeness. It was a lucky stroke for both of us that brought you to my door."

They talked until late – that is to say, Ed talked. Sam warmed gratefully to his friendliness – it was genuine friendliness, that demanded nothing in return; but in the end the uninterrupted stream of talk confused his dulled faculties.

He could neither take it in properly nor answer intelligently. When Ed suggested turning in, therefore, he declined to share the tent.

"I like to lie by myself," he said.

"That's all right!" cried Ed. "Many is like that. Maybe you wouldn't get much sleep with me anyhow. I ain't half talked out yet."

"I'll go lie in my own field," said Sam with a wry smile.

So he had made the little shelter of leaves, facing the river, and built a fire in front. But to-night he could not win forgetfulness.

In three days he had walked close on a hundred miles, and the last long day had overtaxed his strength. He was in that most wretched of states, too fatigued to sleep. His body ached all over, and his mind was filled with black hopelessness.

As long as he had been on the road he had been buoyed up by movement, by the passing scene. To youth a journey always suggests escape from oneself. Now that he had arrived he found that he had brought his burden along with him.

There was no more fight left in him. He was conscious only of an immense desire for something he would not acknowledge to himself.

When at last he did fall asleep it was only to dream of Bela. By the irony of fate he saw Bela as she might have been, wistful, honest, and tender; anything but the sullen, designing liar his anger had built up in the daytime. In dreams she smiled on him, and soothed his weariness with an angel's touch.

He awoke with all his defences undermined and fallen. He could have wept with vexation at the scurvy tricks sleep played him. Then he would drop off and dream of her again; combing her hair in the firelight; leading him by the hand through forests; paddling him down rivers; but always transfigured with tenderness.

That was why he found no zest in the morning sunshine.

Ed Chaney, casting a glance at him, said: "You've overdone it. Better lay off for a couple of days."

"I'm able to work," replied Sam. "I want to work."

"All right!" agreed Ed cheerfully. "You can hoe the garden. I'll go to the piny ridge and chop."

All day Sam kept himself doggedly at work, though as soon as Ed disappeared he had to fight the impulse to drop everything and fly farther. It did not matter where he went, so he kept moving. It seemed to him that only in movement was any escape to be had from the weight pressing on his brain. He wanted to be alone. In his disorganized state of nerves even Ed's friendliness was a kind of torture.

Nevertheless, when night came, another reaction set in, and he elected to sleep with Ed because he could not face such another night alone. They lay down side by side in their blankets. Ed babbled on as inconsequentially as a child. He required no answers.

"We'll build a two-room house so's you can be by yourself when you want. Two men living together get on each other's nerves sometimes, though both are good fellows, and friends, too. Begin to grouse and snarl like man and wife. Why, up here they tell of a man who up and murdered his partner for no reason but he was tired looking at him.

"Afterward we will build you a house of your own, so you can hold your land proper. Expect there'll be quite a rush next spring. This year most of them is stopping by Caribou Lake. But I want a river. I love a flowing river at my door; it seems to bring you new thoughts. This river is navigable for six hundred miles up and down. Some day we'll see the steamboats puffing in front here. I'll put out a wharf for them to land at.

"And you and me's got the best piece of land the whole way! Eighteen inches of black loam! We'll be rich men before we die. Wheat ought to be the best. When others come around us we will put in a little mill to grind the crop. The company would buy all our flour. What do you think of that for a scheme, eh?.. Bless my soul, he's dropped off!"

In the middle of the night Sam awoke to find the moon shining in his face through the open door of the tent. He had had a real sleep. He felt better. He was irresistibly drawn to look outside.

In the pale sky the great, full moon shone with an extraordinary transparency. The field sloping down to the water was powdered with silver dust. The river was like a steel shield with a bar of shining gold athwart it.

On the other side the heights crouched like black beasts at the feet of the moon. The night seemed to be holding its breath under the spell of beauty. Only a subtle murmur arose from the moving river.

So much loveliness was like a knife in Sam's breast. The pain surprised him. It was as if nature had rested him with sleep only to enable him to suffer more keenly.

"What's the use of it if a man must be alone!" his heart cried. "No beauty, no happiness, no peace ever for me! I want her! I want her! I want her!"

Terrified by the trend of his own thoughts, he turned inside and shook Ed Chaney by the shoulder. Ed, with many a snort and grunt, slowly came back to consciousness.

"What's the matter?" he demanded. "The horses – wolves?"

"No, everything is all right," said Sam.

"What's the matter, then?"

"Would you mind staying awake a little?" begged Sam. "I – I can't sleep. Got the horrors, I guess."

"Sure thing!" said Ed. He took "horrors" quite as a matter of course. He was a comfortable soul. He crept to the door and looked out, gradually yawning himself into complete wakefulness.

"God! what a night!" he said simply. "The moon is like a lady coming down to bathe!"

"I hate it!" cried Sam shakily. "Close the flaps."

Ed did so, and returned to his blankets. "Let's have a smoke," he suggested cosily.

They lit up. Sam's pipe, however, went out immediately.

"I suppose you think I'm crazy," he said deprecatingly.

"Oh, I've been young myself," replied Ed.

"If you don't mind I want to talk about it," said Sam. "It's driving me crazy!"

"Fire away," assented Ed. "Is it a woman?"

"Yes," replied Sam. "How did you know?"

Ed smiled to himself.

"She's no good!" went on Sam bitterly. "That's what hurts. She's just a scheming, lying savage! She's only working to get me in her power. I can't trust her. I've got good reason to know that, and yet – oh God! she's right in my blood! I can't stop thinking about her a minute.