The Heart of Unaga Part 40

Every pre-conceived object in life had suddenly been brushed aside by the exhilaration of the moment. The subdued colours of his horizon had been completely overwhelmed by the new radiance. Even Uncle Steve, that precious guide and friend, who had always occupied the central place in his focus, had almost been forgotten.

For Keeko, too, whose youth had been shadowed from the moment understanding had broken through the golden mists of childhood's dream-world, a new meaning to life had been born. She made no attempt to look ahead, and the shadows of the past had no power whatever to rob her of one moment of chaste delight. All she knew, or cared, was that, almost on the instant, the personality of something over six feet of manhood had taken possession of her will. And, with that splendid abandon which generous nature mercifully ordains for youth, she yielded herself to the ecstasy of it.

Keeko was resting upon a fallen tree-trunk. It had been torn up by the roots and flung headlong by the merciless fury of a winter storm. Marcel was standing beside her. The way had been long, but there was no real weariness in either. They had simply paused at their journey's end to survey the great gorge lying at their feet. In the heart of it lay the highway that came up out of the south.

It was a scene of crude immensity which left all life infinitesimal. The barren of it suggested the body of Nature gnawed to the bone, picked clean of the fair flesh with which it is her wont to distract the eyes and senses of man. There lay a frowning, rock-bound chasm at their feet, and deep down in the heart of it a broad, sluggish stream. The two youthful figures were gazing out across the gaping lips at the far-off, distant hills rising up in defence of the secrets of the Northern seas of snow and ice.

For some moments they sat in silence before the might and mystery of that untrodden world. Awe lurked in the eyes of both. It was that awe of the Northland which breeds terror in the weak, and only the strong may survive.

Marcel broke the spell of it. He laughed with a quiet confidence that found no echo in the girl's heart.

"It's pretty darn big," he said, with something almost like contempt in his tone. "But it pays us--toll. I--a man. And you--why, you just a--girl."

It was the pride of youth and strength that spoke. Uncle Steve would not have talked that way--now. Years ago--perhaps. Years ago before his terrible journey across Unaga, when he, too, had defied the very things Marcel now spurned.

But the awe in Keeko's eyes only deepened.

"Maybe you're right," she said doubtfully. "But sometimes it scares me.

Scares me to death."

She drew a long breath as she made the admission.

Marcel's quick answer came with a laugh of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Yet you come up this river with just three neches," he cried. "You make rapids that would hold me guessing, for all the outfit of Eskimo I carry. You'll beat it back south to your home against a two mile stream with a deadly winter hard on your moccasined heels. I just want to laff.

You're scared! Why, get a look right out there, just as far as you can see. I mean where the haze shuts down like a curtain on a forbidden world. There, where there's the dim outline of one big hill propping up the roof of things, standing above all the others. If you took the notion there were pelts there that would worry Lorson Harris to pay for, you'd think no more of making those hills than you worry with the trail over this darn river. That scare notion isn't worth two cents."

The admiration, the obvious delight of Marcel as he derided the girl's plea left a great warmth of pleasure flooding Keeko's eyes.

"You think that?" she cried. Then with a nod: "I'm kind of glad. But you don't know Little One Man--yet. And Snake Foot. And Med'cine Charlie. It isn't me. I've maybe the will. But--I haven't the skill, or the grit.

No. My boys were raised on the rapids of the Dubawnt River. If you heard Little One Man I guess you'd know just what that means. As for me, I've learned things from necessity. I had to learn, same as I've to collect those furs Lorson Harris is going to pay for. Oh, I'm not full of a courage like you think. It's will. Will bred of necessity. It's the sort of will that can't reckon the balance of chances. Chances just don't exist. That's all. It's as you say. That ghost of a hill yonder would have to hand me what I need if I couldn't get it nearer home. But I'd be scared--sure. Badly scared, same as I felt watching you waiting on that moose."

Marcel withdrew his gaze from the tremendous view beyond the river. He turned to the scene of the little encampment so far down below. He saw a moving figure by the canoes, beached on the barren foresh.o.r.e. He beheld the curl of smoke rising from a camp-fire. He knew that a meal was in preparation. It was all as he understood such things, and its interest for him was that it was the home of the girl who had so suddenly taken possession of his life.

"Necessity," he said reflectively. "Guess I'm not just wise to things like older folk. But it seems to me 'necessity' is the thing of all things in life. It sort of seems the key that unlocks the meaning of everything. It sets you chasing pelts to sell for dollars, and it leaves their finding just the one thing worth while. If you got plenty food you don't care two cents if you eat it or not. If you haven't, why the thought of food sets you dreaming beautiful dreams of things you never tasted, and maybe you'd hate anyway if folks handed them to you. If you got a swell bed that's all set ready for you, maybe your fancy sets you sleeping on the hard ground with just a blanket to cover you. If you hadn't, then the thought of that darn blanket would likely set you crazy to grab the other feller's. I come along out every season chasing pelts.

Seeing I don't need 'em it leaves me trailing a bull moose that hands me a chance of getting to grips with the business of life an' death. Say, give me 'necessity' all the time. It's the thing that makes men of the folks you can make anything of at all, and, anyway, makes life a thing to grab right up into your arms and hug so as if you never meant to let go. Necessity for you--a girl--is just the thing that beats me. Why, the men folk around you must be all sorts of everyday folk that wouldn't matter a circ.u.mstance if the whole darn lot got lost in the fog of their own notions, and were left to hand in their checks hollering for the help they never fancied handing you."

There was hot indignation in the final denunciation. Keeko revelled in his sympathy. She pondered a moment. Then a fresh impulse urged her.

"I was just wondering," she said, her gaze avoiding the figure standing so heedlessly at the brink of the canyon, "I kind of feel I ought to tell you of that necessity. Yet it's hard. As I said, there's secrets, and if you start in to talk free north of 60 you're liable to hand over those secrets that belong to the folk who reckon they've the right to impose them on all those belonging to them. I've no sort of secret of my own. None at all. But I guess my step-father has. And that secret is the reason that's brought him to face the storms and evil spirits of Unaga."

She laughed without any lightness. "Will you be content to hear the things I may tell you--without asking me to show you how it is these things are so?" she demanded.

"I don't ask a thing," the man replied promptly. "I don't need to know a thing. You don't get the way I feel. You're a girl. You need furs for trade. Guess that trade means the whole of everything to you, and is liable to make you plenty happy. Well--why, it pleases me to death to help you. That's all."

For a moment Keeko let her wide blue eyes dwell on the man's youthful face.

"That only makes me want to say things more," she retorted, with a slight flush dyeing her soft cheeks. "So I'm just going to say those things right away, and I don't care what secret I hand out doing it.

When a man's generosity gets busy it's to limits mostly a long way ahead. Well, when it's that way I don't reckon a woman feels like slamming the door in his face. I've a step-father and a mother. My mother's sick--sick to death. She's all I've got, and all I care for.

She's kind of a weak woman who's been up against most of the worry and kicks a world can hand her. And now she's sick to death, and looks like getting that peace that life never seemed to be able to hand her. My step-father's a tough man, and I hate him. Say, you guess that my scare isn't worth two cents. I'm scared of my step-father like nothing else in the world. Oh, I'm not scared that he might raise a club at me. That wouldn't worry me a thing. Guess I could deal with that--right. No. I'm not scared that way. It's something different, and it's come through nothing he's ever done or threatened against--me. No, it's my poor mother. I tell you he's letting her die. He's been letting her die all these years when I wasn't old enough to understand. He wants to be rid of her. He's just a murderer at heart, because he's letting her die through neglect he's figgered out. And my mother isn't only a sick woman dying of the consumption the life he's exposed her to has brought on.

She's got a broken heart that he's handed her. But sick as she is, she's wise, and she lies abed thinking not for herself but for me--all the time. And lying there she's worked out a way so I'll be able to get free of my step-father, and play a hand in life on my own when she's gone. It was she taught me to handle a rifle when I'd got hands strong enough to hold it. It was she who set me in the charge of Little One Man years ago, and with Snake Foot and Charlie, to learn the business of pelt hunting. Then when I'd learned all she reckoned I need she lay around and figgered things out further. It was all done without fuss, it was all done in a small way so my step-father shouldn't guess the meaning.

She just grew me into a pelt hunter who he thought some day would be useful hunting for him, and he was kind of pleased. Oh, yes, I hunt for him, but for every dollar I make for him there's five for myself. And those five are hidden deep so he'll never find them. I've done this five seasons, and my sick mother reckons this is to be my last. She guesses she'll never see another spring, and she wants to see me with five thousand dollars clear when I get back to home. Then, when she's gone, she wants me to hit the trail quick. She wants me to take Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie with me, and, with my five thousand dollars, she wants me to look around beyond my step-father's reach, and make good in the craft I've learned. With that thought in her mind she guesses to lie easy in the grave she reckons I'll see is made right for her. That's my 'necessity' and it's big--if you could only see into the notions of two women."

Marcel listened without a word of comment. And as he listened his eyes hardened, and the youthful curves about his lips drew tight into fine lines. For all his inexperience of the lives of others the story set a fierce anger raging in his hot, impulsive heart. The unthinkable to him was a man who could so beset a woman.

He nodded.

"And you trade the pelts with Lorson Harris?" he said.

"Sure." Keeko smiled up into his face. It was the shrewd smile of one who approves her own subtlety. "But I divide the catch before I make home. Five-sixths are for me. And I set them aside, and Little One Man helps me cache them. The rest is the catch I hand my step-father. He makes careful tab of it, and then, after a rest, I set out with the dogs over the winter trail for Seal Bay to make trade. Oh, it's easy. We pick up the cache as we go, and trade the whole, and I just hand my step-father the price of the furs he's tabbed."

The girl's smile was infectious.

"It's bright," Marcel cried. "And--and I'm glad." Then his eyes sobered at the thought of his own purpose. "It's easy, too," he went on eagerly.

"But it's going to be easier. We'll fool this--cur. We'll fool him as he doesn't dream. Say, you didn't need to tell me, Keeko. There wasn't any need. Still, it shows the trust you feel. And it makes me glad. Now I'll tell you the notion I've fixed. You're going to get a whole heap more than that three-thousand-dollar trade. You surely are. And when you go back you'll be free of--of him, just as far as dollars can make you. But I'm hoping you'll go back feeling better than that. Maybe you'll be able to feel that when your poor sick mother is gone you aren't just alone in the world with Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie. There's another feller just waiting around to hand you all the help you need any old time. And this old tree-trunk you're sitting on will find me all the time. We'll make a cache in it. And each end of the open season I'll get around and open the cache. Come here yourself, or send word by Little One Man, and, just as hard as I can lay paddle to the waters of this old river, I'll beat it to your help for all that's in me. Maybe I'm only a kid chasing pelts, but I'd be mighty thankful to Providence for the chance of making good helping you." He laughed with the full sun of his optimism s.h.i.+ning again as he flung out a hand. "Say, shake on it, Keeko!

We're partners in an enterprise to beat a devil man. Do you know what that means? You've likely got your notions. I've got the notion that was handed me by the best man in the world and a dark-faced angel woman.

It means you can just claim me to the last breath. That's so. It surely is."

Keeko took the hand that was thrust out at her. And in a moment her own was crushed gently between the youth's warm, strong palms. And the pressure of them thrilled the girl as nothing else had ever thrilled her in her life.

Her only answer was to gaze up at him with wide, thankful eyes. She had no words. She felt that any attempt to speak must choke her. So she sat there on the ages-old trunk, with a wild feeling of unaccountable emotion in utter and complete possession of her soul.

Marcel abruptly seated himself beside her on the tree-trunk.

"Say, Keeko," he cried, his seriousness gone, "guess this has been all sorts of a talk, and I've blown a horn that would have worried the angel Gabriel. Well, I've just got to make good--that's all. That being so, there isn't a day to waste. I'll have to hit back to my outfit and collect my 'truck,' which I need to tote along over here. It'll take me all a piece of time, but not an hour longer than my craze to start'll let it. I'll get back in a h.e.l.l of a hurry. Meanwhile you need to put Little One Man and Snake Foot and Charlie wise, and see and fix things to start out right away. We're going to hit out north-west to a silver fox country I know of, and when we're through with it Lorson Harris'll start in to drop silver fox prices to the level of grey timber wolf. It makes me feel good--the thought of it."

He sprang up with an energy that suggested the effort it required to tear himself away. And promptly the woman in Keeko a.s.serted itself.

"But you'll eat first?" she said invitingly.

Marcel laughed in frank delight.

"Why, surely," he cried. "I was guessing you might ask me."

Keeko joined in his laugh. They were children at heart, and little more in years.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HEART OF THE WILDERNESS

Marcel and Keeko were standing at the dawn of a new life. The man had looked into a woman's wide, blue eyes. He had gazed upon softly rounded cheeks, as perfect as physical well-being could make them. He had contemplated rich, ripe lips that tempted him well-nigh to distraction.

Thus it was that the pa.s.sionless life of the outworld had no longer power before the stirring of a soul at last awakened from its pristine slumbers.

The meaning of their encounter was no less for Keeko. She was less of the wilderness, perhaps, than Marcel. She had not been so wholly bred to it as he. Her child's eyes had looked upon some measure of civilization, and her mind had gathered a brief training amongst the youth of her own s.e.x. But the result was no less. The grey shadows, which, as far back as she could remember, had overhung her home life seemed suddenly to have been lifted, and the rugged desolation of the Northland had been transformed into a veritable Eden of hope and delight.