Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
So small was the ration they permitted that it gave no appeasement to the hunger pang that was much of the stomach, but more of the brain. And Labiskwee, delirious, maddened by the taste of her tiny portion, sobbing and mumbling, yelping sharp little animal cries of joy, fell upon the next day's portion and crammed it into her mouth. Then it was given to Smoke to see a wonderful thing.
When the snow flew, Smoke and Labiskwee took the most improbable courses, turning east when the better way opened south or west, rejecting a low divide to climb a higher. Being lost, it did not matter. Yet they could not throw the young men off. Sometimes they gained days, but always the young men appeared again.
Minutes of silence passed, in which she visibly struggled, while Smoke cursed himself for the unguessed weakness that enabled him to speak the truth about his hunger for the world while it kept his lips tight on the truth of the existence of the other woman. Again Labiskwee sighed. "Very well. I love you more than I fear my father's anger, and he is more terrible in anger than a mountain storm.
And ever they worked toward the west, and ever they were baffled and thrust north or south by snow-peaks and impassable ranges. "There is no way south," Labiskwee said. "The old men know. West, only west, is the way." The young men no longer pursued, but famine crowded on the trail.
And still he gazed, and still the bannered peaks did not vanish, and still he considered that he dreamed, until Labiskwee sat up among the furs. "I dream, Labiskwee," he said. "Look. Do you, too, dream within my dream?" "It is no dream," she replied. "This have the old men told me. And after this will blow the warm winds, and we shall live and win west."
The day's march had been exhausting, but in addition, despite his nine years' experience in the arctic, he had been eating snow and was in agony with his parched and burning mouth. He crouched by the fire and groaned, while they made the camp. Labiskwee was tireless, and Smoke could not but marvel at the life in her body, at the endurance of mind and muscle. Nor was her cheerfulness forced.
All the pristine goodness of her sex was in her, uncultured by the conventionality of knowledge or the deceit of self-protection. In memory he reread his Schopenhauer and knew beyond all cavil that the sad philosopher was wrong. To know woman, as Smoke came to know Labiskwee, was to know that all woman-haters were sick men.
Smoke would become abruptly conscious, to find himself staring at the never-ending hated snow-peaks, his senseless babble still ringing in his ears. And the next he would know, after seeming centuries, was that again he was roused to the sound of his own maunderings. Labiskwee, too, was light-headed most of the time. In the main their efforts were unreasoned, automatic.
As if fearing she could not restrain herself, she crossed to the fire and threw on more wood. McCan sat up, whimpering and snarling, between fright and rage spluttering an inarticulate explanation. "Where did you get it?" Smoke demanded. "Feel around his body," Labiskwee said. It was the first word she had spoken, and her voice quivered with the anger she could not suppress.
"Let him be," Labiskwee muttered harshly. But Smoke persisted, dragging the Irishman to his feet and facing him down the long slope they must go. Then he started him with a shove, and McCan, braking and steering with his staff, shot into the sheen of diamond-dust and disappeared. Smoke looked at Labiskwee, who smiled, though it was all she could do to keep from sinking down.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking