Isobel Read Free Page B

the stars, and in the
darkness MacVeigh began to whistle cheerfully. He unstrapped his pack
and spread out one of his blankets close to the box and wrapped the
other about the woman's shoulders.
    "You sit here while I make a fire," he said.
    He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and
struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to
the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The
woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen
asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged
in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.
    Then he forked out a deep bed of burning coals and soon the odor of
coffee and frying bacon aroused his companion. She raised her head and
threw back the blanket with which he had covered her shoulders. It was
warm where she sat, and she took off her hood while he smiled at her
companionably from over the fire. Her reddish-brown hair tumbled about
her shoulders, rippling and glistening in the fire glow, and for a few
moments she sat with it falling loosely about her, with her eyes upon
MacVeigh. Then she gathered it between her fingers, and MacVeigh
watched her while she divided it into shining strands and pleated it
into a big braid.
    "Supper is ready," he said. "Will you eat it there?"
    She nodded, and for the first time she smiled at him. He brought bacon
and bread and coffee and other things from his pack and placed them on
a folded blanket between them. He sat opposite her, cross-legged. For
the first time he noticed that her eyes were blue and that there was a
flush in her cheeks. The flush deepened as he looked at her, and she
smiled at him again.
    The smile, the momentary drooping of her eyes, set his heart leaping,
and for a little while he was unconscious of taste in the food he
swallowed. He told her of his post away up at Point Fullerton, and of
Pelliter, who was dying of loneliness.
    "It's been a long time since I've seen a woman like you," he confided.
"And it seems like heaven. You don't know how lonely I am!" His voice
trembled. "I wish that Pelliter could see you— just for a moment," he
added. "It would make him live again."
    Something in the soft glow of her eyes urged other words to his lips.
    "Mebbe you don't know what it means not to see a white woman in— in—
all this time," he went on. "You won't think that I've gone mad, will
you, or that I'm saying or doing anything that's wrong? I'm trying to
hold myself back, but I feel like shouting, I'm that glad. If Pelliter
could see you—" He reached suddenly in his pocket and drew out the
precious packet of letters. "He's got a girl down south— just like
you," he said. "These are from her. If I get 'em up in time they'll
bring him round. It's not medicine he wants. It's woman— just a sight
of her, and sound of her, and a touch of her hand."
    She reached across and took the letters. In the firelight he saw that
her hand was trembling.
    "Are they— married?" she asked, softly.
    "No, but they're going to be," he cried, triumphantly. "She's the most
beautiful thing in the world, next to—"
    He paused, and she finished for him.
    "Next to one other girl— who is yours."
    "No, I wasn't going to say that. You won't think I mean wrong, will
you, if I tell you? I was going to say next to— you. For you've come
out of the blizzard— like an angel to give me new hope. I was sort of
broke when you came. If you disappeared now and I never saw you again
I'd go back and fight the rest of my time out, an' dream of pleasant
things. Gawd! Do you know a man has to be put up here before he knows
that life isn't the sun an' the moon an' the stars an' the air we
breathe. It's woman— just woman."
    He was returning the letters to his pocket. The woman's voice was
clear and gentle. To Billy it rose like sweetest music above the
crackling of the fire and the murmuring of the wind in the spruce
tops.
    "Men like you— ought to have a woman to care