United States or Suriname ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
No man can escape. When shall we celebrate your marriage?" And Labiskwee: "I watch you. There is trouble in your eyes, in your face. Oh, I do know all your face. There is a little scar on your neck, just under the ear. When you are happy, the corners of your mouth turn up. When you think sad thoughts they turn down. When you smile there are three and four wrinkles at the corners of your eyes.
Hour after hour the coughing spells increased in frequency and violence, and not till late afternoon was the worst reached. After that the mend came slowly, and between spells they dozed in exhaustion. McCan, however, steadily coughed worse, and from his groans and howls they knew he was in delirium. Once, Smoke made as if to throw the robes back, but Labiskwee clung to him tightly.
After that, though the disaster had been through no fault of his, Labiskwee never looked at McCan, and Smoke knew it was because she dared not. It was a morning, stark still, clear blue above, with white sun-dazzle on the snow. The way led up a long, wide slope of crust. They moved like weary ghosts in a dead world. No wind stirred in the stagnant, frigid calm.
Each day the crust thawed, each night it froze again; and they were afoot early and late, being compelled to camp and rest during the midday hours of thaw when the crust could not bear their weight. When Smoke grew snow-blind, Labiskwee towed him on a thong tied to her waist. And when she was so blinded, she towed behind a thong to his waist.
The terrible toil and the cold ate up energy, yet they cut down the size of the ration they permitted themselves. One night Smoke was awakened by a sound of struggling. Distinctly he heard a gasping and strangling from where McCan slept. Kicking the fire into flame, by its light he saw Labiskwee, her hands at the Irishman's throat and forcing from his mouth a chunk of partly chewed meat.
He had heard of the miners on the Yukon, and of the Klondike strike. Gold-miners had never invaded his territory, for which he was glad. But the outside world to him did not exist. He tolerated no mention of it. Nor could Labiskwee help Smoke with earlier information. She had been born on the hunting-grounds. Her mother had lived for six years after.
The one but appreciated the other, and all women of all the world appreciated by what Smoke saw in the soul of Labiskwee at Snass's fire in the snow-land. And Smoke learned about himself. He remembered back to all he knew of Joy Gastell, and he knew that he loved her. Yet he delighted in Labiskwee. And what was this feeling of delight but love? He could demean it by no less a name. Love it was.
Far peaks, a hundred miles away, studding the backbone of the Rockies up and down, were as distinct as if no more than five miles away. "Something is going to happen," Labiskwee whispered. "Don't you feel it? here, there, everywhere? Everything is strange." "I feel a chill that is not of cold," Smoke answered. "Nor is it of hunger." "It is in your head, your heart," she agreed excitedly.
"Let us go to the fire and talk. My name is Labiskwee. What is your name?" And so Smoke came to know Labiskwee, the daughter of Snass, whom Snass called Margaret. "Snass is not my father's name," she informed Smoke. "Snass is only an Indian name." Much Smoke learned that day, and in the days that followed, as the hunting-camp moved on in the trail of the caribou.
From the crest, looking back, they saw the young men stumbling and falling on the upward climb. "They will never get here," Labiskwee said. "It is the white death. I know it, though I have never seen it. I have heard the old men talk. Soon will come a mist unlike any mist or fog or frost-smoke you ever saw. Few have seen it and lived." McCan gasped and strangled.
Word Of The Day