In the Brooding Wild

But all the woman’s attention was centred upon the form of the other–the hooded figure she had seen in the morning. He came with long, regular strides, a figure truly calculated to inspire awe. Even now, near as he was to her, there was no sign of his face to be seen. He was clad in the folds of grey wolfskin, and a cowl-like hood utterly concealed his face, while leaving him free to see from within.

As the man came up Aim-sa plunged into voluble speech.

They talked together long and earnestly; their tones were of dictation on the part of the woman and subservience on the part of the man. Then the Spirit of the Moosefoot Indians moved away, and the White Squaw retraced her steps to the dugout.

A look of triumph was in Aim-sa’s blue eyes as she returned through the forest. She gave no heed to the slinking forms that dogged her steps. She saw nothing of the forest about her; all her interest was in the dugout and those who lived there.

When she came to the house she received a shock. Nick had returned during her absence. He had come for the dog sled, and had since brought the vast carcass of a grizzly into camp. Now he was stripping the rich fur from the forest king’s body. The five huskies, with shivering bodies and jowls dripping saliva, were squatting around upon their haunches waiting for the meal they hoped would soon be theirs.

The man, still kneeling over his prize, greeted Aim-sa without pausing in his work.

“Wher’?” he asked, sparing his words lest he should confuse her.

The unconcern of the query reassured her.

“The forest,” replied Aim-sa easily, pointing away down the hill.

There was a long pause while the woodsman plied his knife with rough but perfect skill. The thick fur rolled under his hands. The snick, snick of his knife alternated with the sound of tearing as he pulled the pelt from the under-flesh. Aim-sa watched, interested, then, as Nick made no further remark, she went on. She pointed back at the forest.

“The wolves–they very thick. Many, many–an’ hungry.”

“They’ve left the open. Guess it’s goin’ to storm, sure,” observed the man indifferently. He wrenched the fur loose from the fore paws.

“Yes–it storm–sure.” And Aim-sa gazed critically up at the sky. The usual storm sentries hung glittering upon either side of the sun, and the blue vault was particularly steely.

Nick rose from his gory task. He drew the fur away and spread it out on the roof of the dugout to freeze. Then he cut some fresh meat from the carcass, and afterwards dragged the remainder down the hill and left it for the dogs. The squabble began as soon as he returned to Aim-sa. A babel of fierce snarling and yapping proceeded as the ruthless beasts tore at the still warm flesh. And in less than a minute other voices came up from the woods, heralding the approach of some of the famished forest creatures. Nick gave no heed. The dogs must defend their own. Such is the law of the wild. He had Aim-sa to himself, and he knew not how long it would be before his brother returned.

And Aim-sa was in no way loth to linger by this great trapper’s side. It pleased her to talk in her halting fashion to him. He had more to say than his brother; he was a grand specimen of manhood. Besides, his temperament was wilder, more fierce, more like the world in which he lived.

She hearkened to the sounds of the snarling wolves and her blue eyes darkened with the latent savagery that was in her nature.

“The dogs–they fight. Hah!” she said. And a smile of delight was in her eyes.

“Let ’em fight,” said Nick, carelessly. Then he turned upon her with a look there was no mistaking. His whole attitude was expressive of passionate earnestness as he looked down into the blue worlds which confronted him.

She taunted him with a glance of intense meaning. And, in an instant, the fire in his soul blazed into an overwhelming conflagration.

“You’re that beautiful, Aim-sa,” he cried. Then he paused as though his feelings choked him. “Them blue eyes o’ yours goes right clear through me, I guess. Makes me mad. By Gar! you’re the finest crittur in the world.”

He looked as though he would devour the fair form which had raised such a storm within his simple heart. She returned his look with a fearlessness which still had some power to check his untutored passion. Her smile, too, was not wholly devoid of derision; but that was lost upon him.

“Aim-sa–beautiful. Ah! yes–yes, I know. You speak love to me. You speak love to White Squaw.”

“Ay, love,” cried Nick, the blood mounting with a rush to his strong face. “Guess you don’t know love, my girl. Not yet. But mebbe you will. Say, Aim-sa, I’ll teach it ye. I’ll teach it ye real well, gal. You’ll be my squaw, an’ we’ll light right out o’ here. I’ve got half share in our pile, an’ it ain’t a little. Jest say right here as ye’ll do it, an’ I’ll fix things, an’ hitch up the dogs.”

Nick paused in his eloquence. The squaw’s eyes danced with delight, and he read the look to suit himself. Already he anticipated a favourable answer. But he was quickly undeceived. Aim-sa merely revelled in the passion she had aroused, like a mischievous child with a forbidden plaything. She enjoyed it for a moment, then her face suddenly became grave, and her eyelids drooped over the wonderful eyes which he thought had told him so much. And her answer came with a shake of the head.

“Aim-sa loves not. She must not. The Moosefoot–she is Queen.”

“Curses on the Moosefoot, I say,” cried Nick, with passionate impulse.

Aim-sa put up her hand.

“The man–‘The Hood.’ Fear the Spirit.”

A chill shot down through Nick’s heart as he listened. But his passion was only checked for the moment. The next and he seized the woman in his powerful arms and drew her to his breast, and kissed her not too unwilling lips. The kiss maddened him, and he held her tight, while he sought her blindly, madly. He kissed her cheeks, her hair, her eyes, her lips, and the touch of her warm flesh scorched his very soul. Nor is it possible to say how long he would have held her had she not, by a subtle, writhing movement, slipped from within his enfolding arms. Her keen ears had caught a sound which did not come from the fighting dogs. It was the penetrating forest cry in the brooding mountain calm.

“Remember–‘The Hood,’” Aim-sa warned him. And the next moment had vanished within the dugout.

Now Nick knew that he too had heard the cry, and he stood listening, while his passion surged through his veins and his heart beat in mighty pulsations. As he gazed over the forest waste, he expected to see the mysterious hooded figure.

But what he beheld brought an angry flush to his cheeks. He did not see “The Hood,” but Ralph walking slowly up the hill.

And a harsh laugh which had no mirth in it broke from him. Then a frown settled darkly upon his brow. What, he asked himself, had Ralph returned for? He bore no burden of skins.

And when Ralph looked up and saw Nick whom he believed to be miles away, his heart grew bitter within him. He read the look on the other’s face. He saw the anger, and a certain guiltiness of his own purpose made him interpret it aright. And in a flash he resolved upon a scheme which, but for what he saw, would never have presented itself to him.

And as the gleaming sun-dogs, drooping so heavily yet angrily in the sky, heralded the coming storm of elements, so did that meeting of the two brothers threaten the peace of the valley.

CHAPTER VII.
IN THE STORMING NIGHT

The love of these men for the fair creature of the wild had risen to fever-heat with the abruptness of tropical sunshine. It was no passing infatuation, but the deep-rooted, absorbing passion of strong simple men; a passion which dominated their every act and thought; a passion which years alone might mellow into calm affection, but which nothing could eradicate. It had come into their lives at a time when every faculty was at its ripest; henceforth everything would be changed. The wild, to them, was no longer the wild they had known; it was no longer theirs alone. Their life had gathered to itself a fresh meaning; a meaning drawn from association with Woman, and from which it could never return to the colourless existence of its original solitude.

With the return of Ralph to the camp the day progressed in sullen silence. Neither of the men would give way an inch; neither would return to the forest to complete his day’s work, and even Aim-sa found their morose antagonism something to be feared. Each watched the other until it seemed impossible for the day to pass without the breaking of the gathering storm. But, however, the time wore on, and the long night closed down without anything happening to precipitate matters.

The evening was passed in the woman’s company. Ralph sat silent, brooding. While Nick, with the memory of the wild moments during which he had held Aim-sa in his embrace fresh upon him, held a laboured conversation with her. To him there was a sense of triumph as he sat smoking his blackened pipe, listening to the halting phrases of the woman, and gazing deeply into her wonderful blue eyes. And in the ecstasy of recollection he forgot Ralph and all but his love. There was no generosity in his heart; he had given himself up to the delights of his passion. He claimed the fair Aim-sa to himself, and was ready to uphold his claim so long as he had life.

All that long evening he heeded nothing of the dark expression of Ralph’s face. The furtive glances from his brother’s eyes were lost upon him, and even had he seen them their meaning would have had no terrors for him. With all the blind selfishness of a first love he centred his faculties upon obtaining Aim-sa’s regard, and lived in the fool’s paradise of a reckless lover.

And all the time Ralph watched, and planned. The bitterness of his heart ate into the uttermost part of his vitals, the canker mounted even to his brain. The deep fire of hatred was now blazing furiously, and each moment it gathered destructive force. All that was good in the man was slowly devoured, and only a shell of fierce anger remained.

But what Nick failed to observe Aim-sa saw as plainly as only a woman can see such things. Her bright eyes saw the fire she had kindled, and from sheer wantonness she fanned the flame with all the art of which she was mistress.

Slowly the hours passed. It was Nick who at last rose and gave the signal for departure. It was an unwritten law between these two that when one left Aim-sa’s presence they both left it. Therefore Ralph followed suit, and they retired to their sleeping-apartment.

Outside the night was fine, but the threat of storm hung heavily in the air. The temperature had risen, a sure indication of the coming blizzard. Ralph was the last to leave the woman’s presence, and, ere he closed the door, he looked back at the smiling face, so beautiful to him, so seductively fair in his eyes; and the memory of the picture he looked upon remained with him. He saw the dull-lit interior, with its rough woodsman’s belongings; the plastered walls of logs, coarse and discoloured; the various utensils hanging suspended from five-inch spikes driven in the black veins of timber; the blazing stove and crooked stovepipe; the box of tin dishes and pots; the sides of bacon hanging from the roof; the pile of sacks containing biscuit and dried fish, the latter for the dogs; the outspread blankets which formed the woman’s bed; and in the midst of it all the dazzling presence of Aim-sa, fair as the twilight of a summer evening.

The door closed softly, and as it closed Aim-sa rose from her blankets. Her expression had changed, and while the men went to their humble couches she moved about with feverish haste, attentive to the least sound, but always hurried, and with a look of deep anxiety in her alert eyes.

No word was spoken as the men rolled into their blankets. The thick wall shut out all sound from within the hut. The night was intensely still and silent. Not even was there a single wolf-howl to awaken the echoes of the towering hills. It was as though all nature was at rest.

Nick was soon asleep. Not even the agitation of mind caused by a first love could keep him long awake when the hour for sleep came around. With Ralph it was different. His nature was intenser. His disposition was capable of greater disturbance than was that of the more impetuous Nick. He remained awake; awake and alert. He smoked in the darkness more from habit than enjoyment. Although he could see nothing his eyes constantly wandered in the direction of the man beside him, and he listened for the heavy breathing which should tell him of the slumber which would endure till the first streak of dawn shot athwart the sky. Soon it came; and Nick snored heavily.

Then, without sound, Ralph sat up in his blankets. He bent his head towards the sleeper, and, satisfied, rose softly to his feet. Opening the door he looked out. All was profoundly quiet and black. Not a star shone in the sky, nor was there a sign of the dancing northern lights. And while he stood he heard for the first time that night the cry of some distant forest creature; but the timber-wolves kept silent in the depths below the hut. He drew the door to behind him and moved out into the night.

Cold as it was he was consumed by a perfect fever of agitation. His thoughts were in a state of chaos, but the one dominant note which rang out with clarion-like distinctness was that which drew him towards Aim-sa’s door. And thither he stole softly, silently, with the tiptoeing of a thief, and with the nervous quakings of a wrong-doer. His face was wrought with fear, with hope, with the eagerness of expectancy.

He passed from the deeper shadows in which the lean-to was bathed, and stood at the angle of the house. He paused, and a flurrying of the snow at his feet warned him that he had stepped close to the burrow of one of Nick’s huskies. He moved quickly aside, and the movement brought him beyond the angle. Then he stood stock-still, held motionless as he saw that the door of the dugout was open and the light of the oil-lamp within was illuminating the beaten snow which fronted the house. He held his breath. Again and again he asked himself the meaning of the strange phenomenon.

From where he stood he could see only the light; the doorway was hidden by the storm-porch. But, as he strained his eyes in the direction and craned forward, he became aware of a shadow on the snow where the lamp threw its dull rays. Slowly he scanned the outline of it, and his mind was moved by speculation. The shadow was uncertain, and only that which was nearest the door was recognizable. Here there was no mistake; some one was standing in the opening, and that some one could only be Aim-sa.

He was filled with excitement and his heart beat tumultuously; a frenzy of delight seized upon him, and he stepped forward swiftly. A moment later he stood confronting her.

Just for one moment Aim-sa’s face took on a look of dismay, but it passed before Ralph had time to read it. Then she smiled a glad welcome up at the keen eyes which peered down into her own, and her voice broke the silence in a gentle, suppressed tone.

“Quiet–quiet. The night. The storm is near. Aim-sa watches.”

Ralph turned his face out upon the blackness of the valley, following the direction of the woman’s gaze.

“Ay, storm,” he said mechanically, and his heart pounded within his breast, and his breath came and went heavily. Then, in the pause which followed, he started and looked towards the lean-to as a sound came from that direction. He was half-fearful of his sleeping brother.

Aim-sa’s eyes turned towards the rugged features before her, and her gaze was of an intensity such as Ralph could not support in silence. Words blundered unbidden to his lips, uncontrolled, and he spoke as a man who scarce knows what he is saying. His mind was in the throes of a fever, and his speech partook of the irrelevance of delirium.

“You must live with me,” he said, his brows frowning with the intensity of his passion. “You must be my wife. The white man takes a squaw, an’ he calls her ‘wife,’ savvee? Guess he ain’t like the Injuns that has many squaws. He jest takes one. You’ll be my squaw, an’ we’ll go away from here.”

A smile was in the woman’s blue eyes, for her memory went back to the words Nick had spoken to her that morning.

Ralph went on.

“Guess I love you that bad as makes me crazy. Ther’ ain’t nothin’ to life wi’out you.” His eyes lowered to the ground; then they looked beyond her, and he gazed upon the disordered condition of the room without observing it. “Nick don’t need me here. He can have the shack an’ everything, ’cep’ my haf share o’ the money. Guess we’ll trail north an’ pitch our camp on the Peace River. What say?”

Aim-sa’s eyes were still smiling. Every word Nick had spoken was vivid in her memory. She looked as though she would laugh aloud, but she held herself in check, and the man took her smile for one of acquiescence and became bolder. He stretched out his hand and caught hers in his shaking grasp.

“The white man loves–Aim-sa,” the woman said, softly, while she yielded her two hands to him.

“Love? Ay, love. Say, ther’ ain’t nothin’ in the world so beautiful as you, Aim-sa, an’ that’s a fac’. I ain’t never seen nothin’ o’ wimmin before, ’cep’ my mother, but I guess now I’ve got you I can’t do wi’out you, you’re that soft an’ pictur’-like. Ye’ve jest got to say right here that you’re my squaw, an’ everything I’ve got is yours, on’y they things I leave behind to Nick.”

“Ah,” sighed the woman, “Nick–poor Nick. He loves–Aim-sa, too. Nick is great man.”

“Nick loves you? Did he get tellin’ ye so?”

There was a wild, passionate ring in Ralph’s question.

The squaw nodded, and the man’s expression suddenly changed. The passionate look merged into one of fiery anger, and his eyes burned with a low, dark fire. Aim-sa saw the sudden change, but she still smiled in her soft way.

“An’ you?”

The voice of the man was choking with suppressed passion. His whole body trembled with the chaos of feeling which moved him.

The woman shook her head.

“An’ what did ye say?” he went on, as she remained silent.

“Nick is great. No, Aim-sa not loves Nick.”

Ralph sighed with relief, and again the fiery blood swept through his veins. He stepped up close to her and she remained quite still. The blue eyes were raised to his face and Aim-sa’s lips parted in a smile. The effect was instantaneous. Ralph seized her in a forceful embrace, and held her to him whilst he gasped out the passionate torrent of his love amidst an avalanche of kisses. And they stood thus for long, until the man calmed and spoke with more practical meaning.

“An’ we go together?” he asked.

Aim-sa nodded.

“Now?”

The woman shook her head.

“No–sunrise. I wait here.”

Again they stood; he clasping her unresisting form, while the touch of her flowing hair intoxicated him, and the gentle rise and fall of her bosom drove all thought wild within him.

They stood for many minutes; till at last the still night was stirred by the rustling herald of the coming storm. The long-drawn-out sigh of the wind, so sad, so weird in the darkness of night would have passed unheeded by the man, but Aim-sa was alert, and she freed herself from his embrace.

“At sunrise,” she said. “Now–sleep.” And she made a sign as of laying her head upon a pillow.

Ralph stood irresolute. Suddenly Aim-sa started. Her whole bearing changed. A swift, startled gaze shot from beneath her long, curling lashes in the direction of the distant hills. A tiny glimmer of light had caught her attention and she stepped back on the instant and passed into the hut, closing the door softly but quickly behind her. And when she had disappeared Ralph stood as one dazed.

The significance of Aim-sa’s abrupt departure was lost upon him. For him there was nothing unusual in her movements. She had been there, he had held her in his arms, he had kissed her soft lips. He had tasted of love, and the mad passion had upset his thoughtful nature. His mind and his feelings were in a whirl and he thrilled with a delicious joy. His thoughts were so vivid that all sense of that which was about him, all caution, was obscured by them. At that moment there was but one thing that mattered to him,–Aim-sa’s love. All else was as nothing.

So it came that the faint light on the distant hills burned steadily; and he saw it not. So it came that a shadowy figure moved about at the forest edge below him; and he saw it not. So it came that the light breath from the mountain-top was repeated only more fiercely; and he heeded it not. In those moments he was living within himself; his thoughts were his world, and those thoughts were of the woman he had kissed and held in his arms.

Nothing gave him warning of the things which were doing about him. He saw no tribulation in the sea upon which he had embarked. He loved; that was all he knew. Presently like a sleep-walker he turned and moved around towards the deeper shadow of the lean-to. Then, when he neared the door of the shed in which his brother was, he seemed to partially awake to his surroundings. He knew that he must regain his bed without disturbing Nick. With this awakening he pulled himself together. To-morrow at sunrise he and the squaw were to go away, and long he lay awake, thinking, thinking.

Now the shadow hovering at the forest edge became more distinct as it neared the house; it came slowly, stealing warily up the snow-clad hill. There was no scrunch of footsteps, the snow muffled all such sounds. It drew nearer, nearer, a tall, grey, ghostly shadow that seemed to float over the white carpet which was everywhere spread out upon the earth. And as it came the wind rose, gusty and patchy, and the hiss of rising snow sounded stingingly upon the night air, and often beat with the force of hail against the front of the dugout.

Within a few yards of the hut the figure came to a halt. Thus it stood, immovable, a grey sombre shadow in the darkness of night. Then, after a long pause, high above the voice of the rising wind the howl of the wolf rang out. It came like a cry of woe from a lost soul; deep-toned, it lifted upon the air, only to fall and die away lost in the shriek of the wind. Thrice came the cry. Then the door of the dugout opened and Aim-sa looked out into the relentless night.

The figure moved forward again. It drew near to the door, and, in the light, the grey swathing of fur became apparent, and the cavernous hood lapping about the head identified the Spirit of the Moosefoot Indians. Then followed a low murmur of voices. And again the woman moved back into the hut. The grey figure waited, and a moment later Aim-sa came to him again. Shortly after the door closed and the Spirit moved silently away.

All was profoundly dark. The darkness of the night was a darkness that could be felt, for the merciless blizzard of the northern latitudes was raging at its full height. The snow-fog had risen and all sign of trail or footstep was swept from the icy carpet. It was a cruel night, and surely one fit for the perpetration of cruel deeds.

And so the night passed. The elements warring with the fury of wildcats, with the shrieking of fiends, with the roaring of artillery, with the merciless severity of the bitter north. And while the storm swept the valley the two brothers slept; even Ralph, although torn by such conflicting emotions, was lulled, and finally won to sleep by the raging elements whose voices he had listened to ever since his cradle days.

But even his slumbers were broken, and strange visions haunted his night hours. There was none of the peacefulness of his usual repose–the repose of a man who has performed his allotted daylight task. He tossed and twisted within his sleeping-bag. He talked disjointedly and flung his arms about; and, finally, while yet it was dark, he awoke.

Springing into a sitting posture, he peered about him in the darkness. Everything came back to his mind with a rush. He remembered his appointment at sunrise, and he wondered how long he had slept. Again he crept to the shed door. Again he looked out and finally passed out. Nick still slumbered heavily.

The fury of the elements was unabated and they buffeted him; but he looked around and saw the grey daylight illuminating the snow-fog, and he knew that though sunrise was near it was not yet. He passed around the hut, groping with his hands upon the building until he came to the door. Here he paused. He would awake Aim-sa that she might prepare for her flight with him. There was much to be done. He was about to knock but altered his mind and tried the latch. It yielded to his touch and the door swung back.

He did not pause to wonder, although he knew that it was Aim-sa’s custom to secure the door. He passed within, and in a hoarse whisper called out the name that was so dear to him. There came no answer and he stood still, his senses tense with excitement. He called again, again. Still there was no answer. Now he closed the door, which creaked over the snow covering the sill. He stood listening lest Nick should be moving on the other side of the wall, and to ascertain if Aim-sa had awakened and was fearful at the intrusion. But no sound except the rage of the storm came to him.

His impatience could no longer be restrained; he plunged his hand into the pocket of his buckskin shirt and drew out a box of matches. A moment later a light flashed out, and in one sweeping, comprehensive glance around him he realized the truth. The hut was empty. “Gone, gone,” he muttered, while, in rapid survey, his eyes glanced from one familiar object to another.

Everything was out of place, there were signs of disorder everywhere; and the woman was gone.

Suddenly the wind rushed upon the house with wild violence and set everything in the place a-clatter. He lit the lamp. Then he seemed to collect himself and went over and felt the stove. It was ice cold. The blankets were laid out upon the floor in the usual spread of the daytime. They had not been slept in.

Into his eyes there leapt a strange, wild look. The truth was forcing itself upon him, and his heart was racked with torment.

“She’s gone,” he muttered again, “an’,” as an afterthought, “it’s storming terrible. Wher’? Why?”

He stood again for awhile like a man utterly at a loss. Then he began to move, not quietly or with any display of stealth. He was no longer the self-contained trapper, but a man suddenly bereft of that which he holds most dear. He ran noisily from point to point, prying here, there, and everywhere for some sign which could tell him whither she had gone. But there was nothing to help him, nothing that could tell him that which he would know. She had gone, vanished, been spirited away in the storm.

He was suddenly inspired. It was the realization of the condition of the night which put the thought into his head. With a bound he sprang back to the door and flung it open. To an extent the storm-porch was sheltered, and little drift-snow had blown in to cover the traces of footsteps. Down he dropped upon hands and knees. Instantly all his trailing instincts were bent upon his task. Yes, there were footprints, many, many. There were his own, large moccasins of home manufacture. There were Aim-sa’s, clear, delicate, and small. And whose were those other two? He ran his finger over the outline as though to impress the shape more certainly upon his mind.

“Wide toe,” he muttered, “long heel, an’ high instep. Large, large, too. By G – , they’re Injun!”

He gave out the last words in a shout which rang high above the noise of the storm; he sprang to his feet and dashed out around to the lean-to. At the door he met his brother. Nick had been roused by his brother’s cry.

Seeing the expression of Ralph’s face the larger man stood.

“By Gar!” he cried. Then he waited, fearing he knew not what.

“She’s gone,” shouted Ralph. “Gone, gone, can’t ye hear?” he roared. “Gone, an’ some darned neche’s been around. She’s gone, in the blizzard. Come!”

And he seized Nick by the arm and dragged him round to the door of the dugout.