United States or Uganda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"You know," he answered, forcing her toward the door; "but you will go with me down the Yukon and forget." "Never shall I forget! So long as my skin is white shall I remember!" She clutched frantically at the door-post and looked a last appeal to Mrs. Evelyn Van Wyck. "Then will I teach thee to forget, I, Canim, the Canoe!"
Canim looked to see if her neck had been broken by the heavy pack, grunted his satisfaction, and threw water upon her from the creek. She came to slowly, with choking sobs, and sat up. "It is not good, the hot sun on the head," he ventured. And she answered, "No, it is not good, and the pack bore upon me hard." "We shall camp early, so that you may sleep long and win strength," he said gently.
For she felt that there, in that welter of memories, was the key of the mystery; could she but grasp and hold it, all would be clear and plain O Canim! O Pow-Wah-Kaan! O shades and shadows, what was that? She turned to Canim, speechless and trembling, the dream-stuff in mad, overwhelming riot.
"The white man's teepee, in which he eats and sleeps." She eyed it wistfully, grasping its virtues at a glance and thrilling again at the unaccountable sensations it aroused. "It must be very warm in time of frost," she said aloud, though she felt that she must make strange sounds with her lips. She felt impelled to utter them, but did not, and the next instant Canim said, "It is called a cabin."
Li Wan shook Canim gently but with persistence till he roused and sat up. His first glance was to the sun, and after consulting the celestial timepiece he hunched over to the fire and fell-to ravenously on the meat. He was a large Indian fully six feet in height, deep-chested and heavy-muscled, and his eyes were keener and vested with greater mental vigor than the average of his kind.
She dropped her work obediently and resumed her seat. Canim regarded her with speculative interest. "You do not squat on your hams like other women," he remarked. "No," she answered. "It never came easy. It tires me, and I cannot take my rest that way." "And why is it your feet point not straight before you?" "I do not know, save that they are unlike the feet of other women."
She lay awake, staring up at the blue of the sky and waiting for Canim to sink into the first deep sleep. When this came about, she wormed slowly and carefully away, tucked the robe around him, and stood up. At her second step, Bash growled savagely. She whispered persuasively to him and glanced at the man. Canim was snoring profoundly.
But the lady stepped back and gave permission with her eyes to Canim. He gripped Li Wan under the shoulders and raised her to her feet. She fought with him, in a madness of despair, till his chest was heaving with the exertion, and they had reeled about over half the room. "Let me go, Canim," she sobbed. But he twisted her wrist till she ceased to struggle.
I was unlike other maidens, who sought the young men slyly. I could not care for the young men that way. It would have been a great wrong, it seemed, and an ill deed." "What is the first thing you remember?" Canim asked with abrupt irrelevance. "Pow-Wah-Kaan, my mother." "And naught else before Pow-Wah-Kaan?" "Naught else."
It is the law. And were it not the law, yet would it be the law of Canim, who is lawgiver unto himself and his." She bowed her head again, for she knew no other law than that man was the master of woman. "Be not in haste," Canim cautioned her, as she began to strap the meagre camp outfit to her pack. "The sun is yet hot, and the trail leads down and the footing is good."
Word Of The Day