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Updated: May 11, 2025
Ralph sighed with relief, and again the fiery blood swept through his veins. He stepped up close to her and she remained quite still. The blue eyes were raised to his face and Aim-sa's lips parted in a smile. The effect was instantaneous. Ralph seized her in a forceful embrace, and held her to him whilst he gasped out the passionate torrent of his love amidst an avalanche of kisses.
"Gone, gone, can't ye hear?" he roared. "Gone, an' some darned neche's been around. She's gone, in the blizzard. Come!" And he seized Nick by the arm and dragged him round to the door of the dugout. An interminable week of restless inaction and torture followed Aim-sa's disappearance. Seven long, weary days the blizzard raged and held the two brothers cooped within their little home.
Here there was no mistake; some one was standing in the opening, and that some one could only be Aim-sa. He was filled with excitement and his heart beat tumultuously; a frenzy of delight seized upon him, and he stepped forward swiftly. A moment later he stood confronting her. Just for one moment Aim-sa's face took on a look of dismay, but it passed before Ralph had time to read it.
His thoughts were so vivid that all sense of that which was about him, all caution, was obscured by them. At that moment there was but one thing that mattered to him, Aim-sa's love. All else was as nothing. So it came that the faint light on the distant hills burned steadily; and he saw it not. So it came that a shadowy figure moved about at the forest edge below him; and he saw it not.
And ever since the latter had sought her himself, but his search had been in vain. And each of those three days Nick had returned to camp happy and smiling in a manner which maddened his brother. Now he thought of these things. He told himself, with warped reasoning, that Nick had gone behind his back, that he had taken undue advantage in his winning of Aim-sa's regard.
He did not pause to wonder, although he knew that it was Aim-sa's custom to secure the door. He passed within, and in a hoarse whisper called out the name that was so dear to him. There came no answer and he stood still, his senses tense with excitement. He called again, again. Still there was no answer. Now he closed the door, which creaked over the snow covering the sill.
Yes, there were footprints, many, many. There were his own, large moccasins of home manufacture. There were Aim-sa's, clear, delicate, and small. And whose were those other two? He ran his finger over the outline as though to impress the shape more certainly upon his mind. "Wide toe," he muttered, "long heel, an' high instep. Large, large, too. By G , they're Injun!"
Aim-sa's eyes turned towards the rugged features before her, and her gaze was of an intensity such as Ralph could not support in silence. Words blundered unbidden to his lips, uncontrolled, and he spoke as a man who scarce knows what he is saying. His mind was in the throes of a fever, and his speech partook of the irrelevance of delirium.
They talked together long and earnestly; their tones were of dictation on the part of the woman and subservience on the part of the man. Then the Spirit of the Moosefoot Indians moved away, and the White Squaw retraced her steps to the dugout. A look of triumph was in Aim-sa's blue eyes as she returned through the forest. She gave no heed to the slinking forms that dogged her steps.
The significance of Aim-sa's abrupt departure was lost upon him. For him there was nothing unusual in her movements. She had been there, he had held her in his arms, he had kissed her soft lips. He had tasted of love, and the mad passion had upset his thoughtful nature. His mind and his feelings were in a whirl and he thrilled with a delicious joy.
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