The Snowshoe Trail

  XI

  It was one of Bill Bronson's basic creeds to look his situationssquarely in the face. It was part of the training of the wilderness,and up till now he had always abided by it. But for the past few dayshe had found himself trying to look aside. He had tried to avoid anddeny a truth that ever grew clearer and more manifest,--his love forVirginia.

  He had told himself he wouldn't give his love to her. He would holdback, at least. He had reminded himself of the bridgeless gap thatseparated them, that they were of different spheres and that it onlymeant tragedy, stark and deep, for him to let himself go. He had foughtwith himself, had tried to shut his eyes to her beauty and his heart toher appeal. But there was no use of trying further. In the stress andpassion of the melody he had found out the truth.

  And this was no moment's passion,--the love that he had for her. Billwas not given to fluency of emotion. He was a northern man, intense asfire but slow to emotional response. He had known the great disciplineof the forest; he was not one to lose himself in infatuation orsentimentality. He only knew that he loved her, and no event of lifecould make him change.

  He had had dreams, this man; but they were never so concrete, so fond asthese dreams that swept him now. In the soft candlelight the girl'sbeauty moved him and glorified him, the very fact of her presencethrilled him to the depths, the wistfulness and appeal in her faceseemed to burn him like fire. This northern land was never the home ofweak or half-felt emotions. The fine shades and subtle gradations offeelings were unknown to the northern people, but they had fullknowledge of the primordial passions. They could hate as the she-wolfhates the foe that menaces her cubs, and they could love to the momentof death. He knew that whatever fate life had in store for him it couldnot change his attitude toward her. She would leave the North and goback to her own people, and still he would be true.

  Even in the first instant he knew enough not to hope. They would havetheir northern adventure together, and then she would leave him to hissnows and his trackless forests. She would go to her own land, a placeof mirth and joy and warmth, to leave him brooding and silent in hiswaste places. He knew that all his days this same dream would be beforehis eyes, this wistful-eyed, tender girl, this lovely flower of theSouth. Nothing could change him. The years would come and go--springand summer flowering in the forest, dancing once and tripping on to asofter, gentler land; fall would touch the shrubs with color, whisk offthe golden leaves of the quivering aspen, and speed way; and winter,drear and cheerless, would shroud the land in snow--and find his loveunswerving. The forest folk would mate in fall, the caribou calveswould open their wondering eyes in spring, the moose would bathe andwallow in the lakes in summer, and in winter the venerable grizzly wouldseek his lair, and still his dreams, in his lonely cabin, would beunchanged. His love would never lessen or increase. He had held noneof it back; no more could be given or taken away. He had given his all.

  But if he couldn't keep this knowledge from himself, at least he couldhold it from the girl. It would only bring her unhappiness. It woulddestroy the feeling of comradeship for him that he had begun to observein her. It would put an insurmountable wall between them. Besides, hedidn't believe that she could understand. Perhaps it would only offendher,--that this son of the forests should give her his love. She hadnever dealt with men of his breed before, and she had no inkling of thesmoldering, devouring fires within the man. He would not invite herpity and her distrust by letting her know.

  Strangest of all, he felt no bitterness or resentment. This developmentwas only a fitting part of the tragedy of his life: first his father'smurder, his dreams that had never come true, his lost boyhood, his exilein the waste places, and now the lonely years that stretched before himwith nothing to atone or redeem. He knew that there could be no otherwoman in his life. It was well enough for the men of cities to give andtake back their love; for them it was only wisdom and good sense, butsuch a course was impossible to such sons of the forest as he. Lifegives but one dream to the forest folk, and they follow it till theydie. He knew that the yearning in his heart and the void in his lifecould never be filled.

  Yet he didn't rail at fate. He had learned what fate could do to him,and he had learned to take its blows with a strange fatalism andcomposure. Besides, would he not have the joy of her presence for manydays to come? Their adventure had just begun: weeks would pass beforeshe could go home. In those days he could serve her, toil for her,devote himself wholly to her happiness. He could see her face and knowher beauty, and it was all worth the price he paid. For life in theNorth is life in its simplest phases; and the northern men have had achance to learn that strangest truth of all,--that he who counts thecost of his hour of pleasure shall be crushed in the jaws of Destiny,and that a day of joy may be worth, in the immutable balance of being, awhole life of sorrow.

  Virginia had no suspicion of his thoughts. She was still enthralled bythe after-image of the music, and her own thoughts were soaring faraway. But soon the noise of the storm began to force itself into herconsciousness. It caused her to consider her own prospects for thenight.

  Vaguely she knew that this night was different from the others. The twoprevious nights she had been ill and half-unconscious: her veryhelplessness appealed to Bill's chivalry. To-night she stood on her ownfeet. Matters were down to a normal basis again, and for the first timeshe began to experience a certain embarrassment in her position. Shewas suddenly face to face with the fact that the night stretched beforeher,--and she in a snowswept cabin in the full power of a strange man.She felt more than a little uneasy.

  Already she was tired and longed to go to sleep, but she was afraid tospeak her wish. As the silence of the cabin deepened, and the noise ofthe storm grew louder--blustering at the roof, shaking the door, andbeating on the window pane--her uneasiness gave way to stark fear.

  But all at once she looked up to find Bill's eyes upon her, full ofsympathy and understanding. "You'll want to turn in now," he told her."You take the bunk again, of course--I'll sleep on the floor. I'mcomfortable there--I could sleep on rocks if need be."

  "Can't you get some fir boughs--to-morrow?" The girl spoke nervously.

  "They'd be in the way, but maybe I can arrange it. And now I've got tofix your boidoir."

  He took one of the boxes that served as a chair and stood it up on thefloor, just in front of her bunk. Then, holding one of the blankets inhis arm and a few nails in his hand, he climbed upon the box. Sheunderstood in an instant. He was curtaining off the entire end of thecabin where Virginia slept.

  The girl's relief showed in her face. Her eyes lighted, herapprehension was largely dispelled. She wasn't blind to histhoughtfulness, his quick sympathy; and she felt deeply and speechlesslygrateful. And she was also vaguely touched with wonder.

  "You can go in there now," he told her. "But there's one thing--Iwant to show you--before you turn in."

  "Yes?"

  "I want to show you this little pistol." He took a light arm of bluesteel from his belt,--the small-calibered and automatic weapon withwhich he had gilled the grouse. "It's only a twenty-two," Bill went on,"but it shoots a long cartridge, and it shoots ten of 'em, fast as youpull the trigger. You could kill a caribou with it, if you hit himright."

  "Yes?" And she wondered at this curious interlude in their moment ofparting.

  "You see this little catch behind the trigger guard?" The girl nodded."When you want to fire it, all you have to do is to push up the littlecatch with your thumb and pull the trigger. To-morrow I'm going toteach you how to shoot with it--I mean shoot straight enough to takethe head off a grouse at twenty feet. And so it will bring you luck, Iwant you to sleep with it,--under your pillow."

  Understanding flashed through her, and a slow, grateful smile played ather lips. "I don't want it, Bill," she told him.

  "You'd feel safer with it," the man urged. He slipped it under herpillow. "And even before you learn to shoot it well--you could--ifyou had to
--shoot and kill a man."

  He smiled again and drew her curtain.

  * * * * *

  Bill was true to his promise to teach Virginia to shoot. The next dayhe put up an empty can out from the door of the cabin and they hadtarget practice.

  First he showed her how to hold the weapon and to stand. "See the canjust over the sights and press back gradually," he urged.

  The first shot went wide of its mark. The second and third were nobetter. But by watching her closely, Bill found out her mistake.

  "You flinch," he told her. "It's an old mistake among hunters--andthe only way you can avoid it is by deepest concentration. Skill inhunting--as well as in everything else--depends upon throwing thewhole energy of your mind and body into that one little part of aninstant when you pull the trigger. It's all right to be excited before.You're not human if, the game knocked over, you're not excited after.But unless you can hold like iron for that fraction of a second, youcan't shoot and you never can shoot."

  "But I'm not excited now," she objected.

  "You haven't got full discipline of your nerves, just the same.You're a little afraid of the sound and the explosion, and you flinchback--just a little movement of your hand--when you pull the trigger.If it is only an eighth of an inch here, it's quite a miss by the timethe bullet gets out there. Try again, but convince yourself first thatyou won't flinch. You won't jerk or throw off your aim."

  She lowered the weapon and rested her nerves. Then she quietly liftedthe gun again. And the fourth bullet knocked the can spinning from thelog.

  The man shouted his approval, and her flushed face showed what a realtriumph it was to her. Few of her lifelong accomplishments she hadvalued more. Yet it caused no self-wonder; she only knew that sherespected and prized the good opinion of this stalwart woodsman, and bythis one little act she had proved to him the cool, strong quality ofher nerves.

  And it was no little triumph. She had really learned the basic conceptof good shooting,--to throw the whole force of the nervous system intothe second firing. It was the same precept that makes toward allachievement. The fact that she had grasped it so quickly was a guarantyof her own metal. She felt something of that satisfaction that strongmen feel when they prove, for their own eyes alone, their self-worth.It was the instinct that sends the self-indulgent business man, ridingto his work in a limousine, into the depths of the dreadful wildernessto hunt, and that urges the tenderfoot to climb to the crest of thehighest peaks.

  It did not mean that she was a dead shot already. Months and years ofpractice are necessary to obtain full mastery of pistol or rifle. Shehad simply made a most creditable start. There would be plenty ofmisses thereafter; in fact, the next six shots she missed the can fourtimes. She had to learn sight control, how to gauge distance and windand the speed of moving objects; but she was on the straight road tosuccess.

  While Virginia cooked lunch, Bill cut young spruce trees and made asled: and after the meal pushed out through the whirling snow to beingin the remainder of the moose meat. It was the work of the wholeafternoon to urge the sled up the ridge and then draw it home throughthe drifts. The snow mantle had deepened alarmingly during the night,and he came none too soon. It was only a matter of days, perhaps ofhours, before the snow would be impassable except with snowshoes. Untilat last the snowfall ceased and packed, traveling even with their aidwould be a heart-breaking business.

  Virginia was lonely and depressed all the time Bill was absent, and shehad a moment of self-amazement at the rapidity with which she brightenedup at his return. But it was a natural development: the snow-sweptwilds were dreary indeed for a lonely soul. He was a fellow humanbeing; that alone was relationship enough.

  "You can call me Virginia, if you want to," she told him. "Last namesare silly out here--Heaven knows we can't keep them up in these weeksto come. I've called you Bill ever since the night we crossed theriver."

  Bill looked his gratitude, and she helped him prepare the meat. Some ofit he hung just outside the cabin door; one of the great hams suspendedin a spruce tree, fifty feet in front of the cabin. The skin wasfleshed and hung up behind the stove to dry.

  "It's going to furnish the web of our snowshoes," he explained.

  That night their talk took a philosophical trend, and in the candlelighthe told her some of his most secret views. She found that the North,the untamed land that had been his home, had colored all his ideas, yetshe was amazed at his scientific knowledge of some subjects.

  Far from the influence of any church, she was surprised to find that hewas a religious man. In fact, she found that his religion went deeperthan her own. She belonged to one of the Protestant churches ofChristianity, attended church regularly, and the church had given herfine ideals and moral precepts; but religion itself was not a reality toher. It was not a deep urge, an inner and profound passion as it waswith him. She prayed in church, she had always prayed--halfautomatically--at bedtime; but actual, entreating prayer to a literalGod had been outside her born of thought. In her sheltered life she hadnever felt the need of a literal God. The spirit of All Being was notclose to her, as it was to him.

  Bill had found his religion in the wilderness, and it was real. He hadlistened to the voices of the wind and the stir of the waters in thefretful lake; he had caught dim messages, yet profound enough to floodhis heart with passion, in the rustling of the leaves, the utter silenceof the night, the unearthly beauty of the far ranges, stretching oneupon another. His was an austere God, infinitely just and wise, but Hisgreat aims were far beyond the power of men's finite minds to grasp.Most of all, his was a God of strength, of mighty passions and moods,but aloof, watchful, secluded.

  In this night, and the nights that followed, she absorbed--a little ata time--his most harboured ideas of life and nature. He did not speakfreely, but she drew him out with sympathetic interest. But for all heknew life in the raw and the gloom of the spruce forest, his outlook hadnot been darkened. For all his long acquaintance with a stark andremorseless Nature, he remained an optimist.

  None of his views surprised her as much as this. He knew the snows andthe cold, this man; the persecution of the elements and the endlessstruggle and pain of life, yet he held no rancor. "It's all part of thegame," he explained. "It's some sort of a test, a preparation--andthere's some sort of a scheme, too big for human beings to see, behindit."

  He believed in a hereafter. He thought that the very hardship of lifemade it necessary. Earthly existence could not be an end in itself, hethought: rather the tumult and stress shaped and strengthened the soulfor some stress to come. "And some of us conquer and go on," he toldher earnestly. "And some of us fall--and stop."

  "But life isn't so hard," she answered. "I've never known hardship ortrial. I know many men and girls that don't know what it means."

  "So much to their loss. Virginia, those people will go out of life assoft, as unprepared, as when they came in. They will be as helpless aswhen they left their mother's wombs. They haven't been disciplined.They haven't known pain and work and battle--and the strengtheningthey entail. They don't live a natural life. Nature meant for allcreatures to struggle. Because of man's civilization they are having anartificial existence, and they pay for it in the end. Nature's way isone of hardship."

  This man did not know a gentle, kindly Nature. She was no friend ofhis. He knew her as a siren, a murderess and a torturer, yet with greatsecret aims that no man could name or discern. Even the kindly summermoon lighted the way for hunting creatures to find and rend their prey.The snow trapped the deer in the valleys where the wolf pack might findeasy killing; the cold killed the young grouse in the shrubbery; thewind sang a song of death. He pointed out that all the wildernessvoices expressed the pain of living,--the sobbing utterance of thecoyotes, the song of the wolves in the winter snow, the wail of thegeese in their southern migrations.

  In these talks she was surprised to learn how full had been his reading.All through her girlhood she
had gone to private schools and had beentutored by high-paid intellectual aristocrats, yet she found this manbetter educated than herself. He had read philosophy and had browsed,at least, among all the literature of the past; he knew history and acertain measure of science, and most of all, the association of areas ofhis brain were highly developed so that he could see into the motivesand hearts of things much more clearly than she.

  In the nights he told her Nature lore, the ways of the living-creaturesthat he observed, and in the daytime he illustrated his points fromlife. They would take little tramps together through the storm andsnow, going slowly because of the depth of the drifts, and under histutelage, the wild life began to reveal to her its most hidden secrets.Sometimes she shot grouse with her pistol; once a great long-pinionedgoose, resting on the shore of frozen Gray Lake, fell to her aim. Shesaw the animals in the marshes, the herds of caribou that are, above allcreatures, natives and habitants of the snow-swept mountains, thelittle, lesser hunters such as marten and mink and otter. One nightthey heard the wolf pack chanting as they ran along the ridge.

  Life was real up here. The superficialities with which she had dealtbefore were revealed in their true light. Of all the past materialrequisites, only three remained,--food and warmth and shelter. Othersthat she did not think she needed--protection, and strength anddiscipline--were shown as vitally necessary. Comradeship was needed,too, the touch of a helping hand in a moment of fear or danger; andlove--the one thing she lacked now--was most necessary of all. It wasnot enough just to give love. For years she had poured her adorationupon Harold, lost it too, reciprocally; and this she might find strengthfor the war of life, even a tremulous joy in meeting and surmountingdifficulties.

  The snow fell almost incessantly and the tree limbs could hold no more.The drifts deepened in the still aisles between trunk and trunk. Whenthe clouds broke through and the stars were like great precious diamondsin the sky, the cold would drop down like a curse and a scourge, and theice began to gather on Grizzly River.

  On such nights the Northern Lights flashed and gleamed and danced in thesky and swept the forest world with mystery.