The Heart of Unaga Part 43

And it scares them to death. They sort of reckon it's the world where the devil reigns. The h.e.l.l that some folks reckon is real, and hot--and--h.e.l.lish. But the feller that banks on learning and isn't worried by superst.i.tion'll just hand you the plain truth. It's a volcano, a real, live volcano which they reckon is the heart of Unaga."

The awe in Keeko's eyes only deepened.

"It's--it's just amazing," she cried. Then she added with a deep breath, "It's--dreadful."

From the moment of their landing on the sh.o.r.es of the lake Marcel and Keeko became absorbed in the work that had brought them thither.

The wonder of the fiery Heart of Unaga swiftly pa.s.sed, and only in the brief moments over the camp-fire its fascination claimed them. At such moments neither was quite free from the superst.i.tion they derided. For Keeko it was a mystery of the unknown. For Marcel it was, perhaps, the key to the whole life effort of the man who was his second father.

But the fur hunt was theirs, and with this no mystery of Unaga was permitted to interfere. Marcel was determined on a result such as he had never desired before. He dreamed of silver fox, he thought of silver fox. Silver and black fox had become the sole purpose of his life.

So they beat this great, wide, half-created valley with trap and gun.

They beat it up with all the skill of a life of experience, and reward came plentifully. It came rapidly, too. Sometimes it was almost overwhelming.

It was a land teeming with game of every description known to the regions north of 60. The neighbourhood of the lake was alive with feather. Geese swarmed in their thousands, and there were moments when the sky was black with their legions. Duck, too, of every description had winged up from the south to the virgin waters of the North as Nature reluctantly released these hunting-grounds from the bonds of winter.

Beaver and musk-ox, caribou and black-tail, reindeer and all the legions of lesser furs abounded. Thus, in consequence, it was the normal hunting-ground of the pariah of the beast world. Fox swarmed to the feast that was spread out. And it was the fox alone that needed to fear the coming of the fur hunter.

The slaughter of fox was immense, but selection was discriminate. Only the silver or black were troubled about, and these were collected with a care and skill that ensured the perfection of the pelts. Marcel was better than his word. He lived on the trail, and the Indians were given no rest. Keeko, borne on the uplift of success, knew no weariness when the effort promised treasure. They were working against time. Each of them knew it. And Marcel had the whole season mapped out almost to the hour.

So the days drew out into weeks, and the sun dropped lower and lower towards the horizon. Steadily the nights grew longer, and the working hours less. With each pa.s.sing day the store of perfect pelts mounted.

They were pegged out and dried, and set ready for storing at the moment the frost should bite through the air and hold them imperishable against their journey down to Keeko's home.

Life was almost uneventful in the monotony of success. Rains came, and gales blew down off the distant hills to the north-east. There were times when the great lake justified Marcel's description of it. It raged like a storm-swept sea, and white capped waves broke upon its bosom. But with the pa.s.sing of the storm and the flattening influence of the rain, or under the breaking forth of the chilly Northern suns.h.i.+ne, peace was restored, and the calm looked never to have been broken.

But for all the vagaries of climate, for all the unvarying nature of their labours, there was no monotony in the hearts of Marcel and Keeko.

With every pa.s.sing hour they came nearer and nearer to each other. The youth in them was driving them to that splendid ultimate, which is the horizon of all things between man and woman. There were no doubts. And their only fear was the nearing of that dreaded day when parting must come, and each would be forced to pursue the journey alone.

The parting was in the back of their minds almost from the moment of their arrival at the valley of the lake. Each day that pa.s.sed was marked off in Keeko's mind. It was always one step nearer to the time when she would be forced to bid farewell to the glad light of Marcel's happy eyes, and the sound of his deep-toned, cheerful voice.

She knew. She had known it from those first happy days of their preparations for this northward adventure. And she admitted it without shame. She had learned to love the boy with a depth and strength she had never thought to yield to any man.

Love? It had seemed so far removed from her life, and from those with whom her life had been a.s.sociated. She had thought a thousand times of those men with whom she had been brought into contact. And the very idea of love had only filled her with nausea. Her experience, from her step-father down to the loafing "sharps" of Seal Bay, had firmly planted in her mind the conviction that the men who haunted the shadows north of 60 were only creatures whose quality of soul dared not display itself in the sunlight of truth and honesty.

Yet here, here where the world's dark secrets were more deeply hidden than anywhere else, even with Marcel's simple confession of a hidden purpose, secret movements, she had found a man before whom her woman's heart had at once prostrated itself. It was amazing even to her. She found no explanation even in her moments of heart searching. More than that she had no desire to explain or excuse. The wonderful dream of life had come true. She had yielded unbidden, and nothing she could think of in life could undo the work that had been accomplished almost in the first moments of their meeting.

So it was she watched the store of pelts mount up, she watched the growing laze of the sun as it rose less and less above the horizon, and she noted with dread the steady lengthening of the brief summer night.

Soon, far too soon, must come that parting which would rob her life of the light which had so suddenly broken through its shadows.

And Marcel was no less troubled. But his nature refused to admit the end which Keeko saw ahead. His was a splendid optimism that refused defeat.

He had the tryst he had established in his mind. And far back behind his ingenuous eyes the purpose lurked that should necessity arise he would cut every tie that bound his life, no matter at what cost, and pursue to its logical end the wonderful dream that had been vouchsafed to him.

With determination such as this Marcel delayed the start of the return journey to the last possible moment. And Keeko set no obstacle in the way. She asked no margin of time for accident by the way. She was prepared to accept all chances. The last moments before the permanent freeze up must see her back at her home. For the rest this wild, uncouth land was a radiant garden of delight to her.

But time waits no more for lovers than it waits for those whose hope is dying with the years. In the Northern wilderness time must be calculated almost to the second, and so the limit of safety was reached in a dalliance that had nothing to do with the necessities of their trade.

The moment had come when the return must begin, or the disaster of winter would terminate for ever their youthful dream. The night frosts had done their work upon the pelts. The day was no longer sufficiently warm to seriously undo it. So the canoes floated laden at their moorings as Keeko had dreamed they would, and the last night on the sh.o.r.es of the lake was already closing down.

The camp-fire of driftwood and peat was glowing ruddily. The Indians were already deep within their fur-lined bags, and slumbering with the utter indifference engendered of complete weariness of body. Marcel and Keeko were squatting beside each other over the cheering warmth which kept the night chills at bay. Marcel was smoking. Keeko had no such comfort.

"I'd say Lorson Harris'll need to hand you something a heap better than five thousand dollars," Marcel observed with a laugh of genuine satisfaction and without turning from his contemplation of the fire.

"Where'll you keep it so----?"

Keeko looked up with a start. Her thoughts had been far removed from the profit of her trade.

"At the bank at Seal Bay," she said hastily, lest her abstraction should be noticed.

"You keep it all--there?"

"No." Keeko shook her head. "But I'll have to--this. It's just too big.

I'd be scared to carry it with me."

Marcel laughed again.

"That 'scare' again," he said. Then he turned, and for a moment gazed at the perfect profile which showed up against the growing dusk. "Say, you make me laff. Scare? You don't know what it means."

Keeko's eyes lit responsively as she turned and looked into his strong, fire-lit face.

"Not now," she said quietly. "When I'm down there alone it's--different."

"Alone?" Marcel removed his pipe from between his strong teeth. Then he nodded. "Yes," he agreed, "maybe it's different then."

Just for a moment the impulse was strong in him to fling all responsibility to the winds. He wanted to crush her in his great arms and tell her all those things which life ordains that woman shall yearn to hear. But the impulse was resisted. He knew it had to be.

"But you don't ever need to be alone again," he said simply. "You're forgetting. There's that darn old moose. That's a sign. You've only to send word, or come right along up. You see, the folks who're alone are the folks who've got no one to go to when things get awry. I guess you can't ever feel just alone now--whatever happens."

Keeko's eyes were very soft, very tender as she looked up into Marcel's face.

"It's good to hear that. It's good to feel that," she said gently. "And I do feel it," she added with a deep sigh. "I've a whole heap to thank G.o.d for, and, if it's not wrong to put it that way, still more to thank you for. I just don't know how to say it all. But just as long as I live I----"

"Cut it right out, Keeko. Cut it right out."

Marcel spoke hastily. He spoke almost roughly. He was in no frame of mind to listen complacently to any words of thanks from this girl.

Thanks? If thanks were due it was from him. She had given him her trust and confidence. She had given him moments in his life such as he had never dreamed could fall to the lot of any man. In the firelight he flushed deeply at the thought, and again impulse stirred and nearly overwhelmed him.

"I just can't stand thanks from you, Keeko," he said impulsively.

"Thanks only need to come from folks whom you help feeling you don't fancy doing it. You've handed me the sort of happiness that makes a feller feel like getting onto his hands and knees and thanking G.o.d for.

Say, I can't talk to you same as I fancy to, and I guess it's not my fault. You don't know who I am, or a thing about me. And you can't hand me much more about yourself. Still, I sort of feel the time'll come when we can open out things. What I want to say is, you've handed me a trust that isn't hardly natural. You've chased this country with a feller who might be any old thing from a 'hold-up' to a 'gun-artist,' and they're around in plenty north of 60. And it's the big white heart inside you made you act that way, and I sort of feel that big white heart is still my care, even after we've made good-bye at that old moose head. I wish to death I could say the things I fancy right, but I just can't, and it's no use in talking. But don't you ever dare to hand me thanks, or I'll have to get right up and break things."

Keeko's reply was a low thrilling laugh, full of a gentle gladness which she cared not if he read.

"Maybe you haven't said the things the way you fancy saying them," she said, in her gentle fas.h.i.+on. "But you've said them the way I'd have you say them. But you're right. There's folks in a person's life you can't thank, you haven't a right to thank, and maybe that's how we're fixed.

You've jumped right into my life with your big body and generous heart, and I--well, I guess you haven't found things easier because I've b.u.t.ted into yours. Still, the thing's happened, and it makes me kind of glad.

Some day--But there--what's the use?"

The temptation was irresistible. Marcel flung out one great hand and closed it over the hands the girl was holding out to the fire.

"That's it," he said hoa.r.s.ely, while his body thrilled at the girl's warm clasp in his. "What's the use? Neither you nor I can say the things we feel. That's so. There's a great big G.o.d of this Northland looking on and fixing things the way He sees. As you say 'Some day'! Meanwhile there's the start back to-morrow morning. Just get right along and sleep, and dream good, and be sure you're aren't alone in the world--ever again."