Part 23 (1/2)

Gently his hand went out and came to rest upon the angular shoulder. And when he spoke the tone of his voice, even more than his words, rea.s.sured the woman. ”There are many such white men,” he said, soothingly. ”You need not fear. I am your friend, and the friend of Snowdrift. I, like yourself, am here to find gold, and like yourself, I too, hate the traders of hooch--and with reason.” He stepped to the stove, upturned the bench and recovered his cap. And as the old woman rose to her feet, Brent saw that the look of intense hatred had been supplanted by a look, which if not exactly of friendliness, was at least one of pa.s.sive tolerance. At the doorway he paused, hesitated for a moment, and then, point blank, flashed the question that for days had been uppermost in his mind: ”Who is Snowdrift?”

Wananebish leaned against a stanchion of the bunk. Instinctively, her savage heart knew that the white man standing before had spoken the truth. Her eyes closed, and for a moment, in the withered breast raged a conflict. Then her eyes opened, her lips moved, and she saw that the man was straining eagerly toward her to catch the words: ”Snowdrift is my daughter,” she said.

Brent hesitated. He had been quick to catch the flash of the eye that had accompanied the words, a flash more of defiance than of anger. It was upon his tongue to ask who was Murdo MacFarlane, but instead he bowed: ”I must go now. I shall be coming here often. I hope I shall not be unwelcome.”

The look of pa.s.sive tolerance was once more in her eyes, and she shrugged so noncommittally that Brent knew that for the present, if he had not gained an ally, he had at least, eliminated an enemy.

As the man plodded down the river, his thoughts were all of the girl.

The stern implacability of her as she stood in the doorway of the cabin and ordered him from the encampment. The swift a.s.surance with which she a.s.sumed leaders.h.i.+p as the storm roared down upon them. The ingenuous announcement that they must spend the night--possibly several nights in the barrens. And the childlike navete of the words that unveiled her innermost thoughts. The compelling charm of her, her beauty of face and form, and the lithe, untiring play of her muscles as she tramped through the new-fallen snow. Her unerring sense of direction. Her simple code of morals regarding the killing of men. Her every look, and word and movement was projected with vivid distinctness upon his brain. And then his thoughts turned to the little cabin that was her home, and to the leathern skinned old woman who told him she was the girl's mother.

”The squaw lied!” he uttered fiercely. ”Never in G.o.d's world is Snowdrift her daughter! But--who is she?”

He rounded the last bend of the river and brought up shortly. Joe Pete was stoking the fire with wood, and upon the gravel dump, sat the girl apparently very much interested in the operation.

Almost at the same instant she saw him, and Brent's heart leaped within him at the glad little cry that came to him over the snow, as the girl scrambled to her feet and hurried toward him. ”Where have you been?” she asked. ”I came to hunt--and you were gone. So I waited for you to come, and I watched Joe Pete feed the fire in the hole.”

Brent's fingers closed almost caressingly over the slender brown hand that was thrust into his and he smiled into the upraised eyes: ”I, too, went to hunt. I went to your cabin, and your--mother,” despite himself, the man's tongue hesitated upon the word, ”told me that you had gone with the women to bring in the meat.”

”Oh, you have seen Wananebis.h.!.+” cried the girl, ”And she was glad to see you?”

”Well,” smiled Brent, ”Perhaps not so awfully glad--right at first. But Wananebish and I are good friends, now.”

”I am glad. I love Wananebish. She is good to me. She has deprived herself of many things--sometimes I think, even of food, that I might stay in school at the mission. And now it is too late to hunt today, and I am hungry. Let us go in the cabin and eat.”

”Fine!” cried Brent, ”Hey, Joe Pete, cut some caribou steaks, and I'll build up the fire!” He turned again to the girl, ”Come on,” he laughed, ”I could eat a raw dog!”

”But, there is plenty of meat!” cried the girl, ”And you'll need the dogs! Only when men are starving will they eat their dogs--and not _raw_!”

Brent laughed heartily into the dismayed face: ”You need not be afraid, we will save the dogs till we need them. That was only a figure of speech. I meant that I am very hungry, and that, if I could find nothing else to eat I should relish even raw dog meat.”

Snowdrift was laughing, now: ”I see!” she cried, ”In books are many such sayings. It is a metaphor--no, not a metaphor--a--oh, I don't remember, but anyway I am glad you said that because I thought such things were used only in the language of books--and maybe I can say one like that myself, someday.”

At the door of the cabin they removed their snowshoes, and a few moments later a wood fire was roaring in the little stove. Joe Pete came in with the frozen steaks, set them down upon the table, and moved toward the door, but Brent called him back. ”You're in on this feed! Get busy and fry up those steaks while I set the table.”

The Indian hesitated, glanced shrewdly at Brent as if to ascertain the sincerity of the invitation, and throwing off his parka, busied himself at the stove, while Brent and Snowdrift, laughing and chattering like children, placed the porcelain lined plates and cups and the steel knives and forks upon the uneven pole table.

The early darkness was gathering when they again left the cabin.

Snowdrift paused to watch Joe Pete throw wood into the flames that leaped from the mouth of the shallow shaft: ”Why do you have the fire in the hole?” she asked of Brent, who stood at her side.

”Why, to thaw the gravel so we can throw it out onto the dump. Then in the spring, we'll sluice out the dump and see what we've got.”

”Do you mean for gold?” asked the girl in surprise, ”We only hunt for gold in the summer in the sand of the creeks and the rivers.”

”This way is better,” explained Brent. ”In the summer you can only muck around in the surface stuff. You can't sink a shaft because the water would run in and fill it up. In most places the deeper you go the richer the gravel. The very best of it is right down against bed-rock. In the winter we keep a fire going until the gravel is thawed for six or eight inches down, then we rake out the ashes and wait for the hole to cool down so there will be air instead of gas in it, and then we throw out the loose stuff and build up the fire again.”

”And you won't know till spring whether you have any gold or not? Why, maybe you would put in a whole winter's work and get nothing!”

”Oh, we kind of keep cases on it with the pan. Every day or so I scoop up a panful and carry it into the cabin and melt some ice and pan it out.”