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Steve helped himself from sheer habit. Marcel ate hungrily. It was Marcel who broke the silence. He was in no mood for silence. There were many things seeking outlet in his mind. But paramount was the all-dominating subject of Keeko. "Say, Uncle," he cried suddenly, "isn't she just great? Isn't she ?" Steve nodded. "She's greater," he said, with twinkling eyes.
And, in turn, they were passed on that narrow margin which is the line drawn between safety and destruction. Then came the mouth of the gorge, and the stretch of open river where it debouched upon the "lake that was like a sea." For Keeko it was all like some wonderful dream with Marcel the magician who inspired it.
Loved her with all his simple heart and body, and his love was bound up with an honour which he had no power to outrage. Time and again in the madness of the moment he thought to urge Keeko to abandon all and return with him to the home which he knew would hold nothing but welcome for her. He thought of all that happiness which might be hers in the kindly associations of Uncle Steve and An-ina.
"I've a whole heap to thank God for, and, if it's not wrong to put it that way, still more to thank you for. I just don't know how to say it all. But just as long as I live I " "Cut it right out, Keeko. Cut it right out." Marcel spoke hastily. He spoke almost roughly. He was in no frame of mind to listen complacently to any words of thanks from this girl. Thanks?
If thanks were due it was from him. She had given him her trust and confidence. She had given him moments in his life such as he had never dreamed could fall to the lot of any man. In the firelight he flushed deeply at the thought, and again impulse stirred and nearly overwhelmed him. "I just can't stand thanks from you, Keeko," he said impulsively.
Her mother refused everything for herself in a burning fever of urgency. There was time for nothing nothing but that purpose which she had set her heart on. Keeko obeyed. She passed out of the room at once. Her meal was awaiting her, a rough, plain meal prepared by the squaw of Little One Man.
But through all, above all, floated the spirit of Keeko, and he knew that whatever might have befallen nothing would have made him act differently. He was troubled to realize that for the first time in his life Uncle Steve and An-ina had only second place in his thought. His reflections were broken by An-ina's quiet return. "Supper him all fixed. Marcel come?" Marcel started up.
A feller doesn't feel that way with women later, when they show him the hell they've always got waiting on any fool man. She's got grit. Sure she has. It's good for a girl to have grit, and I'd say she's got it plenty. But she put up a gun at me. And I reckon she meant to use it if need be. It's that that's the matter. That's been put into her darn fool head. That's not Keeko."
Keeko would have been less than the woman she was had she further resisted the happy enthusiasm and youthful impulse of this great creature who had been a stranger to her less than an hour ago. There was honesty and confidence in every word he uttered, and there was that simple boyish admiration in his good-looking eyes which made the final unconscious appeal.
The girl nodded at once. Nicol saw the look and understood, and, for a moment, his eyes flashed with that ungovernable temper which was part of him. But the danger passed as swiftly as it came. Little One Man had flung the bundle ashore as Keeko stepped from the boat, and, in another moment, Nicol's sheath knife was ripping the thongs of rawhide which held it.
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