Part 24 (1/2)
”Bill, I'm so sorry!” she pleaded. ”It's terrible, I know. What can we do?”
”Do? Huh!” he snorted. ”If I ever have to die before my time, I hope it will be with a full belly and my head in the air--and mercifully swift.”
Even then she had no clear idea of his intention. She looked up at him pleadingly, but he was staring at the horses, his teeth biting nervously at his under lip. Suddenly he blinked, and she saw his eyes moisten. In the same instant he threw up the rifle. At the thin, vicious crack of it, Silk collapsed.
She understood then. With her hand pressed hard over her mouth to keep back the hysterical scream that threatened, she fled to the house.
Behind her the rifle spat forth its staccato message of death. For a few seconds the mountains flung whiplike echoes back and forth in a volley. Then the sibilant voice of the wind alone broke the stillness.
Numbed with the cold, terrified at the elemental ruthlessness of it all, she threw herself on the bed, denied even the relief of tears.
Dry-eyed and heavy-hearted, she waited her husband's coming, and dreading it--for the first time she had seen her Bill look on her with cold, critical anger. For an interminable time she lay listening for the click of the latch, every nerve strung tight.
He came at last, and the thump of his rifle as he stood it against the wall had no more than sounded before he was bending over her. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and putting his arm across her shoulders, turned her gently so that she faced him.
”Never mind, little person,” he whispered. ”It's done and over. I'm sorry I slashed at you the way I did. That's a fool man's way--if he's hurt and sore he always has to jump on somebody else.”
Then by some queer complexity of her woman's nature the tears forced their way. She did not want to cry--only the weak and mushy-minded wept. She had always fought back tears unless she was shaken to the roots of her soul. But it was almost a relief to cry with Bill's arm holding her close. And it was brief. She sat up beside him presently.
He held her hand tucked in between his own two palms, but he looked wistfully at the window, as if he were seeing what lay beyond.
”Poor, dumb devils!” he murmured. ”I feel like a murderer. But it was pure mercy to them. They won't suffer the agony of frost, nor the slow pain of starvation. That's what it amounted to--they'd starve if they didn't freeze first. I've known men I would rather have shot. I bucked many a hard old trail with Silk and Satin. Poor, dumb devils!”
”D-don't, Bill!” she cried forlornly. ”I know it's my fault. I let the fire almost go out, and then built it up big without thinking. And I know being sorry doesn't make any difference. But please--I don't want to be miserable over it. I'll never be careless again.”
”All right; I won't talk about it, hon,” he said. ”I don't think you will ever be careless about such things again. The North won't let us get away with it. The wilderness is bigger than we are, and it's merciless if we make mistakes.”
”I see that.” She shuddered involuntarily. ”It's a grim country. It frightens me.”
”Don't let it,” he said tenderly. ”So long as we have our health and strength we can win out, and be stronger for the experience. Winter's a tough proposition up here, but you want to fight shy of morbid brooding over things that can't be helped. This ever-lasting frost and snow will be gone by and by. It'll be spring. And everything looks different when there's green gra.s.s and flowers, and the sun is warm.
Buck up, old girl--Bill's still on the job.”
”How can you prospect in the spring without horses to pack the outfit?”
she asked, after a little. ”How can we get out of here with all the stuff we'll have?”
”We'll manage it,” he a.s.sured lightly. ”We'll get out with our furs and gold, all right, and we won't go hungry on the way, even if we have no pack train. Leave it to me.”
CHAPTER XXI
JACK FROST WITHDRAWS
All through the month of January each evening, as dusk folded its somber mantle about the meadow, the wolves gathered to feast on the dead horses, till Hazel's nerves were strained to the snapping point.
Continually she was reminded of that vivid episode, of which she had been the unwitting cause. Sometimes she would open the door, and from out the dark would arise the sound of wolfish quarrels over the feast, disembodied snappings and snarlings. Or when the low-swimming moon shed a misty glimmer on the open she would peer through a thawed place on the window-pane, and see gray shapes circling about the half-picked skeletons. Sometimes, when Bill was gone, and all about the cabin was utterly still, one, bolder or hungrier than his fellows, would trot across the meadow, drawn by the scent of the meat. Two or three of these Hazel shot with her own rifle.
But when February marked another span on the calendar the wolves came no more. The bones were clean.
There was no impending misfortune or danger that she could point to or forecast with cert.i.tude. Nevertheless, struggle against it as she might, knowing it for pure psychological phenomena arising out of her harsh environment. Hazel suffered continual vague forebodings. The bald, white peaks seemed to surround her like a prison from which there could be no release. From day to day she was hara.s.sed by dismal thoughts. She would wake in the night clutching at her husband. Such days as he went out alone she pa.s.sed in restless anxiety. Something would happen. What it would be she did not know, but to her it seemed that the bleak stage was set for untoward drama, and they two the puppets that must play.
She strove against this impression with cold logic; but reason availed nothing against the feeling that the North had but to stretch forth its mighty hand and crush them utterly. But all of this she concealed from Bill. She was ashamed of her fears, the groundless uneasiness. Yet it was a constant factor in her daily life, and it sapped her vitality as surely and steadily as lack of bodily nourishment could have done.