Part 10 (1/2)
”Glorious! I'll cook breakfast myself”
”Not breakfast--lunch,” he corrected ”It's already about noon But it would be very nice if you'd do the cooking while I cut the night's fuel You kno--dilute a little cannedpowder, stir in your flour--and it's wheat mixed with rye, and bully flour for flapjacks--and fry 'em thick Set water to boil and we'll have coffee, too”
They went to their respective tasks And the pancakes and coffee, when at last they were stea on the little, crude board-table, were really a very creditable effort They were thick and rich as befits wilderness flapjacks, but covered with syrup they slid easily down the throat
Bill consumed three of them, full skillet size, and sed two herself
He helped her wash the scanty dishes, then prepared for the hunt ”Do you want to come?” he asked ”It's a cool, raw day You'll be more comfortable here”
”Do you think I'd stay here?” she des She only knew that this cabin, lost in the winter forest, would be a bleak and unhappy place to endure alone The storm and the snoept marshes, with Bill beside her, were infinitely preferable to the haunting fear and loneliness of solitude The change in her attitude toward hi warmly, they ventured out into the snoastes The storhtened nor decreased The snow still sifted down steadily, with a relentlessness that was someway dreadful to the spirit The drifts were about their knees by now; and thewas a serious business The winter silence lay deep over the wilderness
It was a curious thing not to hear the rustle of a branch, the crack of a twig; only the muffled sound of their footsteps in the snow Bill walked in front, breaking trail He carried the ancient rifle ready in his hands
The truth was that Bill did not wish to overlook any possible chance for ga was her, and soon he could not hunt at all without snowshoes It was not good for their spirits or their bodies to try to live withoutprocess This was no realetarians
The readily assimilated ani
Fortune had not been particularly kind so far on this trip--at least froinia's point of view--but he did earnestly hope that they o to their winter feeding grounds, far down the heights Every day they hunted, their chance of procuring e to the marshy shores of Gray Lake,--a dismal body of water over which the waterfowl circled endlessly and the loons shrieked their maniacal cries He noticed, with some apprehension, that ulls and their fellows This factat sea, and they themselves would soon feel the lash of them They waited in the shadow of the spruce
”Don't make any needless motions,” he cautioned, ”and don't speak aloud
They've got eyes and ears like hawks”
It was not easy to stand still, in the snow and the cold, waiting for gainia was unco and tired In an hour the cold had gripped her; her hands were lifeless, her toes ached Yet she stoodwait that they had beside the lake The short, snow-darkened afternoon had not ed; he knew that for the girl's sake he must leave his watch
He waited a few irl felt his hand on her arm ”Be still,” he whispered
”Here he co in the saame Her eyes were not yet trained to these wintry forests It was a strange fact, however, that the announcement was like a hot stiue left her in an instant And soon she made out a black for toward us,” the h she had never seen such an ani horns, the great fraed only to the an to race through her veins
The anie, but the distance between the the lake shore, tossing his horns in arrogance Once he paused and gazed a long tis braced and head lifted; but evidently reassured he ventured on
Noithin three hundred yards
”Why don't you shoot?” the girl whispered
”I'et him with my thirty-five Now don't make a h so that she could receive somires such as lay on the lake shore She had passed some of them on the journey But the bull moose took the to see Where a strong horse would have floundered at the first step, he stretched out his hind quarters, and, striking with his long, powerful front legs, pulled through Then she are that Bill was ai
At the roar of the rifle she cried out in excitement The old bull had traversed the ht with his fellow bulls in the rutting season He rocked down easily, and Bill's racing fingers ejected the shell and threw another into the barrel, ready to fire again if need be But no second bullet was required The ht and true, and the bullet had pierced his heart