XVII
The addition of Harold to their number did not influence, for long,Virginia's old relations with Bill. They were comrades as ever; theytalked and chatted around the little stove in the hushed nights; theyplayed their favorite melodies on the battered phonograph, and they tookthe same joyous, exciting expeditions into the wild. These latterdiversions were looked upon with no favor by Harold, but he couldn't seehow he could reasonably interfere. Nor did he care, at first, toaccompany them. He had no love for the snow-swept wastes.
The crust on the snow was steadily strengthening; most the days wereclear and excessively cold. The journey could be undertaken soon. Onlya few more days of the adventure remained.
Their excursions at first were a matter of pleasure only, but by oneunexpected stroke from the sinister powers of the wild they weresuddenly made necessary. Her first knowledge of the blow came when Billentered her cabin to build the morning fire.
She had not yet risen. It had always been her practice to wait till theroom was snug and warm before she dressed. She was asleep when Billcame in, and aroused by his footsteps, she was aware of the fleetingmemory of unhappy dreams. She couldn't have told just what theywere. It seemed to her that some unseen danger had been menacing hersecurity,--that evil and dangerous forces were conspiring and makingwar against her. Hidden foes were in ambush, ready to pounce forth.
The danger seemed different and beyond that which she had faced everyday: snow and cold and the other inanimate forces of the wild. And shewas vastly relieved to hear Bill's voice calling her from sleep.
But the next instant her fears returned--not the ghastly fear of evildreams but of actual and real disaster. It wasn't Bill's usual customto waken her. He wanted her to spend as many as possible of themonotonous hours in sleep. There was a subdued quality in his voice,too, that once or twice she had heard before. She drew aside thecurtain, far enough to see his face. There was no paleness, however,nor no fear, for all that his eyes were sober.
"You'd better get up as soon as you can, Virginia," he said. "We've gotto take a real hunt to-day."
"Hunt? After meat?"
"Yes. We're face to face with a new problem. The pack came by lastnight--the wolf pack. As usual, when men are near, they didn't make asound. I didn't hear them at all. And they got away with the big mooseham, hanging on the spruce. Stripped the bone clean."
"Then we're out of meat?"
"All except the little piece outside the door. We've been going throughit pretty fast."
Bill spoke true. Their meat consumption had practically doubled sinceHarold had come. For all his lack of physical exercise, the latter wasan unusually heavy eater.
"But we won't be able to find any now. The moose are gone----"
"We're not very likely to, that's certain; but it won't be a tragedy ifwe don't. It would only be an annoyance. It's true that we've got tohave more supplies to start down--I don't believe we could make itthrough with what we have, considering the loss of this ham--but ifit's necessary I can mush over to me Twenty-three Mile cabin and get thesupplies I left over there. Harold tells me he hasn't a thing in hisold place. However, I can do it, if we don't happen to pick up somemeat to-day."
"We might track down the wolves, and get one of those----"
"Wolf meat hasn't a flavor you'd care for, I'm afraid. The Indians havebeen known to eat it, but they can but away beaver and tough old grizzlybear. Those things are starvation meats only. But if you care to, wecan dash out and see if we can pick up a young caribou or a left-overmoose. It's pleasant out to-day, anyway. It's rather warm--I believethere's going to be a change of weather."
"Good or bad?" the girl asked.
"Haven't had any government bulletins on that point, this morning.Probably bad. The weather in the North, Virginia, goes along the way itis a while, and then it gets worse."
She dressed, and at breakfast their exultation over their trip grewpainful to Harold's ears. He announced his intention of going along.
Curiously, even Virginia did not receive this announcement withparticular enthusiasm. It was not that her regard for Bill was any kinto that she held for Harold. Rather, it was a fear that Harold'spresence might blunt the edge of the fine companionship she enjoyed withthe woodsman. It would throw a personal element into an otherwisecare-free and adventurous day. But she smiled at him, rather fondly.
"Just as you like, Harold."
They put on their snowshoes, their warmest wraps, and started gaylyforth. Bill took rather a new course to-day. He bent his steps towarda stream that he called Creek Despair,--named for the fact that he hadonce held high hopes of finding his lost mine along its waters, only tomeet an utter and hopeless failure. From the map he had judged that thelost claim lay somewhere along its course, but he had washed it from itsmother springs clear to its mouth, finding scarcely the faintest tracesin the pan. Because he had made such a tireless search in thisparticular section in previous years he had completely avoided it in thepresent adventure. Even on his pleasure trips with Virginia he hadnever forgotten his search: thus he had led her into more favorableregions where he might reasonably keep his eyes over for clews. Nowthat he had given up finding the claim--for this season, at least, andperhaps forever--one way was as good as another. And he rememberedthat an old caribou trail lay just beyond the stream on the steephillside.
Bill led the way, mushing quietly an swiftly, and Virginia sped afterhim. The cold had brought a high color to her cheeks and a luster toher eyes; her nerves and muscles tingled with life. She was inwonderful spirits. Never she took a hundred paces without experiencingsome sort of a little, heart-gladdening adventure.
Every manifestation of the forest life about her filled her withdelight. The beauty of the winter woods, the absorbing record that thewild creatures had left in the snow, the long sweep of range and valleythat she could glimpse from a still hilltop, all had their joy for her.With Bill she found something to delight her, something to make herlaugh and quicken her blood, in every hundred yards of their course.Sometimes when the snow record was obscure, Bill stopped and explained,usually with a graphic story and unconscious humor that made the woodstingle and ring with her joyous, rippling laughter. More than often,however, she was able to piece our the mystery by herself.
Bill had a long and highly fanciful conversation with a little,black-tailed ermine that tried to run under his feet; he imitated--toVirginia's delight, the spectacle of a large and stiff cow moose pullingherself through the mud; he repeated for her the demented cries of theloons that they had sometimes heard from the still waters of Gray Lake.But he didn't forget that the main purpose of their expedition was tohunt. When at last they reached the caribou range he commanded silence.
Harold, silent in the others' gayety, immediately evinced a decidedinclination to talk. He had not particularly enjoyed the excursion sofar. In the first place he had no love either for the winter forest orthe creatures that inhabited it; he would have been much morecomfortable and at ease beside the cabin stove. He couldn't much withcomfort at Bill's regular pace: he was rather out of breath andirritated after the first two hundred rods. Most of all, he wassavagely conscious of the fact that Virginia was not giving him arightful share of her attention. For the time being she seemed to haveforgotten his presence. He was resentful, wishing disaster upon thehunt, eager to turn back.
"The rule is silence, from now on," Virginia answered his first remark."Bill says we're in a game country."
The answer didn't satisfy him. But his heart suddenly leaped when Billglanced back in warning and pointed to an entrancing wilderness picture,a hundred yards in front.
In a little glade and framed by the forest stood a large bull caribou,flashing and incredibly vivid against the snow. There is no animal inall North American fauna, even the bull elk, that presents a moresplendid figure than that huge member of the deer family, Osburn'scaribou. His mane is snow white, his back and sides a glossy brown,his eye f
lashes, and his antlers--in the season that he carriesthem--stream back like young trees. The bull did not stir out of histracks, yet he gave the impression of infinite movement and pulsing,quivering vitality. He shook and threw his head, he lifted his forefoot nervously, and framed by the winter forest he was a sight never toforget. Incidentally he made a first-class target,--one that seemedimpossible to miss.
"I'll take him," Harold shouted. "Let me take him."
In a flash Harold realized that here was his opportunity: in one stroke,one easy shot, he could turn the day's ignominy into triumph. He couldfocus Virginia's admiration upon himself. But the impulse had evendeeper significances. It was not the way of sportsmen, wandering infile on mountain trails, to clamor for the first shot at game. Whateveris said is usually in solicitation to a companion to shoot; and Virginiafelt oddly embarrassed. Harold's gun leaped to his shoulder.
But in the fields of sport there is always a penalty for extremeeagerness. There is a retributive justice for those that attempt tograsp opportunities. Harold was afraid that Bill might raise and shoot,thus rubbing him of his triumph, and he pressed back against the triggerjust a fifth of a second too soon. The target looked too big to miss,but his bullet flung up the snow behind the animal.
The caribou's powerful limbs pushed out a mighty leap. Frenzied, Haroldshot again; but his nerve was broken and his self-control blown to thefour winds. The animal had gained the shelter of the thickets by now,and Harold's third and fourth shots went wild. Then he lowered hisweapon with a curse.
It is part of the creed of a certain type of hunter to never admit aclean miss. "My sights are off," Harold shouted. "They didn't shootwithin three feet of where I aimed. Damn such a gun--but I think Iwounded him the third shot. You'll find him dead if you follow him longenough."
Bill answered nothing, but went to see. In the firing he hadn't evenraised his own gun to his shoulder. There is a certain code amonghunters in regard to shooting another's game: an unwritten law that,except in a case of life and death, one hunter does not interfere withanother's shooting. It was through no desire to embarrass Harold thathe didn't assist him in putting down his trophy. He was simply givingthe man full play. Bill stared at the caribou tracks in the snow,followed them a hundred feet, and then came mushing back.
"You didn't seem to have put one in," he reported simply.
"I didn't, eh?" Harold answered angrily. "How could you tell, so soon?I suppose you're woodsman enough to know that a wounded animal doesn'talways show blood. I'd be ready to bet that if we followed him farenough we'd find him dead."
"We'd have to follow him till he died naturally of old age," was thegood-humored reply. "We can't always hit, Lounsbury. He began to trotwhen he got into the trees--a perfectly normal gait. I think we'dbetter look for something else."
"Then I want you to carry my gun awhile, and let me take yours. Thesights are off a mile. It's all ready, and here's a handful of extrashells. You ought to be willing to do that, at least."
Harold had forgotten that this man was not his personal guide, subjectto his every wish. He held out gun and shells; and, smiling, Billreceived them, giving his own weapon in exchange. They mushed on downthe trail.
But Harold's miss had not been his greater sin. To miss is human; notrue sportsman holds it against his fellow. The omission that followed,however, was by all the codes of the hunting trails unpardonable. Hesupposed that he had refilled his rifle magazine with shells before heput it in Bill's hands. In his confusion and anger, he had forgotten todo so; and the only load that the gun contained was that in the barrel,thrown in automatically when the last empty shell was ejected.