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The shoulder of a bull moose was never a load for a weak back. Thepiece of meat weighed nearly one hundred pounds and was of awkward shapeto carry. Bill, secure in his strength, would never have attempted itexcept for the fact that after one small ridge was climbed, the way wasdownhill clear to the cabin.
He skinned out the quarter with great care; then, stooping, worked it onhis back. Virginia took his gun and led the way back over their snowtrail.
By resting often, they soon made the hilltop. From thence on theydragged the meat in the immaculate snow. Twilight had fallen again whenthey made the cabin.
Already Virginia thought of it as home. She returned to it with athrill in her veins and a joy in her heart. She was tired out and cold;this humble log hut meant shelter from the storm and warmth and food.Bill hung the meat; then with his knife cut off thick steaks for theirsupper. In a few moments their fire was cracking.
Bill showed her how to broil the steak in its own fat, and he cooked hotbiscuits and macaroni to go with it. No meal of her life had ever givenher greater pleasure. They made their plans for the morrow; first toconstruct a crude sled and then to bring in the remainder of the meat."If the wolves don't claim it to-night," Bill added, as he lighted hispipe.
"It's strange that I don't want to smoke myself," the girl told him.
"You? Why should you?"
"I smoke at home. I mean I did. It's getting to be the thing to doamong the girls I know. Someway, the thought of it doesn't seeminteresting any more."
"Did you--really enjoy it then? If you did, I'll split my store withyou. You've got as much right to it as I." The man spoke ratherheavily.
"I didn't think I did enjoy it. I did it--I suppose because it seemedsporting. It never made me feel peaceful--only nervous. I don'tbelieve tobacco is a temperamental need with women as it is with somemen--otherwise it wouldn't have taken so many centuries to establishthe custom. It would only--seem silly, up here."
He had an impression that she was speaking very softly. The quality ofabsolute and omnipresent silence had passed from the wilderness. Therewas a low stir, a faint murmur that at first was so far off and vaguethat neither of them could name it.
But slowly the sound grew. The tree tops, silent before with snow, gaveutterance; the thickets cracked, stirred, and moved as if some dreadspirit were coming to life within them. The candle flickered. A lowmoan reached them from the chimney. Bill strode to the door and threwit wide.
He did not have to peer out into that unfathomable darkness to know theenemy that was at his gates. It spoke in a sudden fury, and the snowflurries swept past, like strange and wandering spirits, in the dimcandle light. No longer the flakes drifted easily and silently down.They seemed to be coming from all directions, whirling, eddying, borneswiftly through the night and hurled into drifts. And a dread voicespoke across the snow.
"The north wind," Bill said simply.
Virginia's eyes grew wide. She sensed the awe and the dread in histones; even she, fresh from cities, knew that this foe was not to bedespised. She felt the sharp pinch of the cold as the heat escapedthrough the open door. The temperature was falling steadily; already itwas far below freezing. Bill shut the door and walked back to her.
"What does it mean?" she asked breathlessly.
"Winter. The northern winter. I've seen it break too many times.Perhaps we can drown out the sound of it--with music."
He walked toward the battered instrument. Her heart was cold withinher, and she nodded eagerly. "Yes--a little ragtime. It will befrightfully loud in the cabin, but it's better than the sound of thestorm."
She didn't dream that this wilderness man would choose any other kind ofmusic than ragtime. She was but new to the North, otherwise she wouldhave made no such mistake. Superficiality was no part of these northernmen. They knew life in the raw, the travail of existence, the pinch ofcold and the fury of the storm; and the music that they felt in theirhearts was never the light-hearted dance music of the South. Music isthe articulation of the soul, and the souls of these men were darkenedand sad. It could not be otherwise, sons of the wilderness as theywere.
The pack song, on the hilltop in the winter moon, was never a melody oflaughter. Rather it was the song of life itself, life in the raw, andthe sadness and pain and the hopeless war of existence find their echoin the wailing notes. None of the wilderness voices were joyous. WhenBill had chosen his records he took those that answered his own mood andexpressed his own being.
Not all of them were sad music, in the strictest sense. But they wereall intense, poignant and tremulous with the deepest longings of thehuman soul.
"I haven't any ragtime," the man explained humbly. "I could only bringup a few records, and so I took just the ones I liked best. They'resimple things--I'm sorry I haven't any more."
She looked at this man with growing wonder. Of course he would like thesimple things. No man of her acquaintance had ever possessed truerstandards: no sophistication or cultural growth such as she herself hadknow could have given him a truer gentility. What was this thing thatmen could learn in the woods and in the North that gave them such poise,such standards, and brought out such qualities of manhood? Yet she knewthat the forests did not treat all men alike. Those of intrinsic virtuewere made better, their strength was supplemented by the strength of thewilderness itself, but the weaklings perished quickly. This was not aland for soft men, for the weak and the cowardly and the vicious. Thewild soon found them out, harried them by storms and broke their heartsand their spirits, and kept from them its gracious secrets. Perhaps inthis latter thing lay the explanation. It seemed to her that Bill wasalways straining, listening for the faintest, whispered voices of theforest about him. He was always watching, always studying--his souland his heart open--and Nature poured forth upon him her incalculablerewards.
He put on a record, closed the doors of the instrument tight to mufflethe sound, and set the needle. She recognized the melody at once. Itwas Drdla's "Souvenir"--and the first notes seemed to sweep her intoinfinity.
It was a beautiful, haunting thing, sweet as love, warm as a maiden'sheart, tender as motherhood; and all at once Virginia was aware of aheart-stirring and incredible contrast. The melody did not drown outthe sound of the storm. It rose above it, infinitely sweet andentreating, and all the time the wild strains of the storm outside madea strange and dreadful background. Yet the two songs mingled with suchharmony as only old masters, devotees to music, can sometimes hear intheir inmost souls but never express in notes.
She felt the tears start in her eyes. Her cheeks flamed. Her heartraced and thrilled. For all the exquisite beauty of the song, a vaguedread and an incomprehensible fear seemed to come upon her. For all thestir and impulse of the melody, a strange but exquisite sadness engulfedher spirit. In that single instant the North drew aside its curtains ofmystery and showed her its secret altar. For a breath at least she knewits soul,--its travail, its dreadful beauty, its infinite sadness, itsmerciless strength.
In her time Virginia had now and then known the fear of Death. Twonights previous, as the waters had engulfed her, she had known it verywell. But never before had she known fear of life. That's what itwas--fear of _life_--life that could only cost and could not pay, thatcould take and could not give, that could pain but could not heal. Sheknew now the dreadful persecution of the elements, cold and storm andthe snow fields stretching ever from range to range. She knew the fearof hunger, of struggle to break the spirit and rend the body, ofdisaster that could not be turned aside, of cruel and immutable destiny.She knew now why the waterfowl had circled all day so restlessly: theytoo had known the age-old fear of the northern winter. They had sensed,in secret ways, the swift approach of the storm.
Winter was at hand. It would lock the streams and sweep the land withsnow, the sun would grow feeble in the sky, and the spirit of Cold woulddescend with its age-old terrors. And the creepy fear, the hauntingterror
known to all northern creatures, man or beast, crept into herlike a subtle poison.
It was a moment of enchantment. The music rose high, fell in soaringleaps, trembled in infinite appeal, and slowly died away. Outside thestorm increased in fury. The wind sobbed over the cabin roof, the treescomplained, the snow beat against the window pane. And still the spelllingered. Her lustrous eyes gazed out through the darkened pane, buther thoughts carried far beyond it.
And it was well for her peace of mind that she did not glance at Bill.The music had moved him too: besides the fear of the North he had beentorn by even a deeper emotion, and for the instant it was written all toclearly upon his rugged features. He was watching the girl's face, hiseyes yearning and wistful as no human being had ever seen them.
The soaring notes, with the dreadful accompaniment of the storm, hadbrought home a truth to him that for days on the trail he had tried todeny. "I love you, Virginia," cried the inaudible voice of his soul."Oh, Virginia--I love you, I love you."