XX
Bill made plans for an early start to his Twenty-three Mile cabin. Thehike would have been easy enough, considering the firm snow that coveredthe underbrush, but the hours of daylight were few and swift. And hehad no desire to try to find his way in that trackless country in thedarkness.
"I'll leave before dawn--as soon as it gets gray," he told Virginia ashe bade her good night. "I'll come back the next day, with a backloadof supplies. And with the little we have left, we will have enough togo on. We can start for Bradleyburg the day after that."
Virginia took no pleasure in bidding him good-by. She had alreadylearned that this winter forest was a bleak and fearful place when herwoodsman was away. Curiously, she could find little consolation in thethought that she and Harold could have a full day together, alone. Andbefore the night was half over, it seemed to her, she heard his stealingfeet on the cabin floor outside her curtain.
He seemed to be moving quietly, almost stealthily. She heard the stovedoor open, and the subdued crack of a match scratched gently. A warmglow flooded her being when she understood.
For all the arduous day's toil that waited him, Bill hadn't forgotten tobuild her fire. The cabin would still be warm for her to dress. Shedidn't know that her eyes were shining in the gloom. She drew aside thecurtain.
"I'm awake, Bill. I want to tell you good-by again," she said.
"I don't see what makes me so clumsy," Bill returned impatiently. "Ithought I could get this fire going without waking you up. But I'm gladenough to have another good-by."
"And you'll be--awfully careful?" Her voice did not hold quitesteadily. "So many--many things can happen in those awfulwoods--when you are alone. I never realized before how they're alwayswaiting, always holding a sword over your head, ready to cut you down.I'm afraid to have you go----"
He laughed gently, but the deathless delight he felt at her wordsrippled through the laugh like flowing water. "There's nothing to beafraid of, Virginia. You'll see me back to-morrow night. I've wanderedthese woods by myself a thousand times----"
"And the thousandth and first time you might fall into their trap! Butwhy can't we take some of that grizzly meat----"
"Virginia, you'd break your pretty teeth on it. Of course we could in apinch--but this is no march, to-day. Good-by."
"Good-by." Her voice sank almost to a whisper, and her tones were soberand earnest. "I'll pray for you, Bill--the kind of prayers you toldme about--entreating prayer to a God that can hear--and understand--andhelp. A real God, not just an Idea such as I used to believe in. Here'smy hand, Bill."
He groped for it as a plant gropes for sunlight, as the blind grope tofind their way. He found it at last: it was swallowed in his own palm,and the heart of the man raced and thrilled and burned. She couldn'tsee what he did with it in the darkness. It seemed to her she felt awarmth, a throbbing, a pressure that was someway significant andportentous above any experience of her life. Yet she didn't know thathe had dropped to his knees outside the curtain and pressed the hand tohis lips. The door closed slowly behind him.
The last stars were fading, slipping away like ghosts into the furtherrecesses of the sky, as he pushed away from the cabin door. He didn'tneed the full light of morning to find his way the first few miles. Heneed only head toward the peak of a familiar mountain, now a shadowagainst the paling sky.
The night was not so cold as it had a right to be. He had expected atemperature far below zero: in reality it seemed not far below freezing.Some weather change impended, and at first he felt vaguely uneasy. Buthe mushed on, the long miles gliding slowly, steadily beneath him. Onlyonce he missed his course, but by back-tracking one hundred yards hefound it again.
Morning came out, the trees emerged from the gloom, the shadows faded.He kept his direction by the landmarks learned while following his traplines. The day was surprisingly warm. His heavy woolens began tooppress him.
As always the wilderness was silent and vaguely sinister, but after afew hours it suddenly occurred to him that the air was preternaturallystill. A few minutes later, when he struck a match to light his pipe,this impression was vividly confirmed. As is the habit with allwoodsmen he watched the match-smoke to detect the direction of the wind.The blue strands, with hardly a waver or tremor, streamed straight up.He was somewhat reassured, however, when he remembered that he had notyet emerged from a great valley between low ranges that ordinarilyprevented free passage of the winds.
He mushed on, his snowshoes crunching on the white crust. The powers ofthe wilderness gave him good speed--almost to the noon hour. Thenthey began to show him what they could do.
He was suddenly aware that the fine edge of the wilderness silence hadbeen dulled. There was a faint stir at his ear drums, to dim to name oridentify or even to accept as a reality. He stopped, listeningintently.
The stir grew to a faint and distant murmur, the murmur to a long swishlike a million rustling garments. A tree fell, with a crash, far away.Then the wind smote him.
In itself it was nothing to fear. It was not a hurricane, not even aparticularly violent storm, but only a brisk gale that struck him fromthe side and more or less impeded his progress. Trees that weretottering and ready to fall went down with reverberating reports; thesnowdust whirled through the forest, changing the contour of the drifts,and filling up the tracks of the wild creatures. But for Bill the windheld a real menace. It was from the southeast, and warm as a girl'shand against his face.
No man of the Northwest Provinces is unacquainted with this wind. It isprayed for in the spring because its breath melts the drifts swiftly,but it is hated to death by the traveler caught far from his cabin onsnowshoes. The wind was the far-famed Chinook, the southeast gale thatsoftens the snow as a child's breath melts the frost on a window pane.
It did not occur to Bill to turn back. Already he was nearly halfway tohis destination. The food supplies had to be secured, sooner or later;and when the Chinook comes no man knows when it will go away. He mushedon through the softening snow.
Within an hour the crust was noticeably softer. One hour thereafter andthe snow was soft and yielding as when it had first fallen in earlywinter. Mushing was no longer a pleasant pursuit. Henceforth it wassimply toil, rigorous and exhausting. The snowshoe sank deep, the snowitself clung to the webs and frame until it was almost impossible tolift.
A musher in the soft wet snow can only go at a certain pace. There isno way to hurry the operation and get speedily over the difficulties.Any attempt to quicken the pace results only in a fall. The shoe cannotbe pushed ahead as when the snow is well-packed or crusted. It has tobe deliberately lifted, putting the leg tendons to an unnatural strain.
It was too far to turn back. As many miles of weary snow stretchedbehind him as before him. At Twenty-three Mile cabin he could pass anight as comfortable as at home: there were food and blankets in plenty,and the well-built hut contained a stove. Once there, he could wait fora hard freeze that would be certain to harden the half-thawed snow andmake it fit for travel. His only course was to push on step by step.
The truth suddenly dawned upon him that he was face to face with one ofthe most uncomfortable situations of all his years in the forest. Hedidn't believe he would be able to make the cabin before the fall ofnight; if indeed he were able to complete the weary miles, it would onlybe by dint of the most cruel and exhausting labor. He carried noblankets, and although with the aid of his camp ax he could keep somesort of a fire, a night out in the snow and the cold was not anexperience to think of lightly.
Bill knew very well just what capabilities for effort the human bodyholds. It has certain definite limits. After a few hours of such laboras this the body is tired,--tired clear through and aching in itsmuscles. Despondency takes the place of hope, the step is somewhatfaltering, hunger assails and is forgotten, even the solace of tobaccois denied because the hand is too tired to grope for and fill the pipe.Thereafter comes a deeper stage of fatigue
, one in which every separatestep requires a distinct and tragic effort of will. The perceptions areblunted, the uncertainty of footfall is more pronounced, the starkreality of the winter woods partakes of a dreamlike quality. Then comesutter and complete exhaustion.
In its first stages there can still be a few dragging or staggeringsteps, a last effort of a brave and commanding will. Perhaps there iseven a distance of creeping. But then the march is done! There is nocomeback, no rallying. The absolute limit has been reached. Butfortunately, lying still in the snow, the wanderer no longer cares. Hewonders why he did not yield to this tranquil comfort long since.
Bill began to realize that he was approaching his own limit. The wearymiles crept by, but with a tragic languor that was like a nightmare.But time flew; only a little space of daylight remained.
Bill's leg muscles were aching and burning now, and he had to forcehimself on by sheer power of his will. He would count twenty-fivepainful steps, then halt. The wind had taken a more westerly course bynow, and the snow was no longer melting. The air was more crisp:probably one night would serve to recrust the snow. But the fact becameever more evident that the darkness would overtake him before he couldreach the cabin.
But now, curiously, he dreaded the thought of pausing and making a fire.Partly he feared--with the age-old fear that lay buried deep in everycell--the long, bitter night without shelter, food or blankets; buteven the labor of fire-building appalled his spirit. I would be amighty task, fatigued as he was: first to clear away the snow, cut downtrees, hew them into lengths and split them--all with a light camp axthat only dealt a sparrow blow--then to kneel and stoop and nurse thefire.
His woodsman's senses predicted a bitter night, in spite of the warmthof the day. It would harden the snow again, but it would also wage waragainst his life. All night long he would have to fight off sleep sothat he could mend the fire and cut fuel. It mustn't be a feeble,flickering fire. The cold could get in then. All night long the flamemust not be allowed to flag. In his fatigue it would be so easy to doseoff,--just for a moment, and the fire would burn out. In that casethe fire of his spirit would burn out too,--just as certain, just assoon.
Late afternoon: already the shadows lay strange and heavy in the distanttree aisles. And all at once he paused, thrilled, in his tracks.
A little way to the east, on the bank of a small creek, his father andhis traitorous partner had once had a mining claim,--a mine they hadtried unsuccessfully to operate before Bronson had made his big strike.They had built a small cabin, and for nearly thirty years it had stoodmoldering and forgotten. Twice in his life Bill had seen it,--once asa boy, when his father had taken him there on some joyous, holidayexcursion, and once in his travels Bill had beheld it at a distance.Its stove had rotted away years since; it contained neither food norblankets nor furniture, yet it was a shelter against the night and thecold. And even now it was within half a mile of where he stood.
Exultant and thankful, Bill turned in his tracks and mushed over towardit.