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There was a growing vibration in the leaning tree. It laboured under his weight. He pressed on, his whole mind and purpose concentrated. Keeko watched the roots for a sign of the strain. There was none. She glanced out at the distance he yet had to go. And the length of it prompted a warning cry she dared not utter. Farther and farther he passed on. Then came a pause that suggested uncertainty.
Keeko was resting upon a fallen tree-trunk. It had been torn up by the roots and flung headlong by the merciless fury of a winter storm. Marcel was standing beside her. The way had been long, but there was no real weariness in either. They had simply paused at their journey's end to survey the great gorge lying at their feet. In the heart of it lay the highway that came up out of the south.
Keeko had come to him with her love. She had faced everything the north country could show her to bring him the warning. He had forgotten her. He had forgotten everything, but the gentle creature whose dark-eyed terror haunted him. Keeko understood. She had no feeling other than a great, unvoiced joy in the splendid manhood of it all. She stood up.
"Guess we follow the river till the ice breaks up. Then we camp, and I make the rest by the water." "Oh, yes. Him moose head. Yes? And him big hunter Marcel?" Keeko smiled into the dusky face of her faithful ally. "That's so if God wills it." The daylight was lengthening. Very slowly the lolling sun was returning to life and power. A sense of revivifying was in the air.
Him set 'em up." Lu-cana failed to understand that which lay at the back of Keeko's eyes. She could not read the words on the totem. She did not know their meaning when she heard them. All she knew was that the white man had done this thing. Keeko pointed at it. "Guess I'll make a new totem," she said, in a tone that was only cold and hard. "And we'll set it up. You and me, Lu-cana.
But even so, there was a strong steadying strain of wisdom in him, the wisdom of the Northland, bought at a price that few can afford to pay. It served to hold the balance under the influence of this new adventure. It was something more than adventure. There was a significance in the extraordinary encounter with Keeko that dimmed to the commonplace every thrill he had ever experienced in the past.
The other, the one who called herself Keeko, she seemed to live her own life regardless of the man, regardless of everybody except the sick woman, who was her mother. She made the summer trail after pelts and so trespassed upon what the Indians regarded as their rights, but since the white man seemed to approve there was little to be said.
The man raised a protesting hand and smiled into the eyes which betrayed so much. "Easy, easy," he said. "You're jumping too far. It's taken you years, and I guess you haven't learnt yet. Guess I'll have to do better. You're one of those fool women who never learn. If you'd horse sense you wouldn't have said what you handed me just now. You're glad Keeko took my measure for a coward.
Marcel and Keeko were sitting side by side on one of the sleds which had not yet been completely unloaded. Steve was squatting on an up-turned box that had been used to contain food stores for the trail. He was facing them, and his back was towards the building of the store.
If you get out after me you'll get shot like the dog you are. So you best think hard." Keeko moved towards the door. Not for one moment did she turn her back, or lower her gun. And the man's furious eyes followed her till the slam of the door shut her out from his view. For awhile Nicol remained staring at the dark timbers of the closed door.
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