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This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter's voice there were both amazement and contempt. "Yes, run," said Billy, quietly. "Run for the kid's sake." It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his companion. "You mean " "That it's the only way to save the kid.
He told the girl about Pelliter, and confessed to her that he had opened her last letter. He told her that he had opened her letter because he loved Pelliter more than most men loved their brothers. Then he resealed the letter, gave his mail to the superintendent, packed his medicines and supplies, and made ready to return.
After breakfast Pelliter read his letters again, and then Billy read them. In one of the letters the girl had put a tress of sunny hair, and Pelliter kissed it shamelessly before his comrade. "She says she's making the dress she's going to wear when we're married, and that if I don't come home before it's out of style she'll never marry me at all," he cried, joyously.
Pelliter and Little Mystery were happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it began to soften the snow underfoot.
Together they stood for a moment at the window, staring far to the south and east, where a faint red rim of gold shot up through the leaden sky. "It's the sun," said MacVeigh, like one speaking a prayer. "The first in four months," breathed Pelliter. Like starving men the two gazed through the window. The golden light lingered for a few moments, then died away. Pelliter went back to his bunk.
Then he would go on with the woman and he laughed softly and joyously at the glorious news which he would take back to Pelliter a little later. For the kiss burned on his lips, the blue eyes smiled at him still from out of the firelit gloom, and he knew nothing but hope. It was late, almost midnight, when he went to bed. With the storm wailing and twisting more fiercely about him, he fell asleep.
Billy, her mother must have been beautiful. had that's what made me guess fear " Pelliter wiped his face uneasily, and the two young men stared into each other's eyes. MacVeigh leaned forward, waiting. "I figured it all out last night, lying awake there in my bunk," continued Pelliter, "and as the second best friend I have on earth I want to ask you not to go any farther, Billy. She's mine.
He heard the quick metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter slipped them into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the wind, and the straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim silence fell behind. The roar of the distant ice grew less. The earth no longer seemed to shudder under their feet at the terrific explosions of the crumbling bergs.
His own face was flushed. That is the difference in men. MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half of the cabin. "If that's your game, here goes," he cried. "Now, damn y', you're so anxious to fight get at it 'n' fight!" He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went into action.
"I've been in this country a long time, and I tell you they're dogs and men. Did you hear the drum? It's made of seal belly, and there's a bell on each side of it. They're Eskimos, and there isn't an Eskimo village within two hundred miles of us this winter. They're Eskimos, and they're not on a hunt, unless it's for us!" In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and cartridge-belt.
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