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The shoulder of a bull moose was never a load for a weak back. The piece of meat weighed nearly one hundred pounds and was of awkward shape to carry. Bill, secure in his strength, would never have attempted it except for the fact that after one small ridge was climbed, the way was downhill clear to the cabin.
He skinned out the quarter with great care; then, stooping, worked it on his back. Virginia took his gun and led the way back over their snow trail.
By resting often, they soon made the hilltop. From thence on they dragged the meat in the immaculate snow. Twilight had fallen again when they made the cabin.
Already Virginia thought of it as home. She returned to it with a thrill in her veins and a joy in her heart. She was tired out and cold; this humble log hut meant shelter from the storm and warmth and food. Bill hung the meat; then with his knife cut off thick steaks for their supper. In a few moments their fire was cracking.
Bill showed her how to broil the steak in its own fat, and he cooked hot biscuits and macaroni to go with it. No meal of her life had ever given her greater pleasure. They made their plans for the morrow; first to construct a crude sled and then to bring in the remainder of the meat. "If the wolves don't claim it to-night," Bill added, as he lighted his pipe.
"It's strange that I don't want to smoke myself," the girl told him.
"You? Why should you?"
"I smoke at home. I mean I did. It's getting to be the thing to do among the girls I know. Someway, the thought of it doesn't seem interesting any more."
"Did you—really enjoy it then? If you did, I'll split my store with you. You've got as much right to it as I." The man spoke rather heavily.
"I didn't think I did enjoy it. I did it—I suppose because it seemed sporting. It never made me feel peaceful—only nervous. I don't believe tobacco is a temperamental need with women as it is with some men—otherwise it wouldn't have taken so many centuries to establish the custom. It would only—seem silly, up here."
He had an impression that she was speaking very softly. The quality of absolute and omnipresent silence had passed from the wilderness. There was a low stir, a faint murmur that at first was so far off and vague that neither of them could name it.
But slowly the sound grew. The tree tops, silent before with snow, gave utterance; the thickets cracked, stirred, and moved as if some dread spirit were coming to life within them. The candle flickered. A low moan reached them from the chimney. Bill strode to the door and threw it wide.
He did not have to peer out into that unfathomable darkness to know the enemy that was at his gates. It spoke in a sudden fury, and the snow flurries swept past, like strange and wandering spirits, in the dim candle light. No longer the flakes drifted easily and silently down. They seemed to be coming from all directions, whirling, eddying, borne swiftly through the night and hurled into drifts. And a dread voice spoke across the snow.
"The north wind," Bill said simply.
Virginia's eyes grew wide. She sensed the awe and the dread in his tones; even she, fresh from cities, knew that this foe was not to be despised. She felt the sharp pinch of the cold as the heat escaped through the open door. The temperature was falling steadily; already it was far below freezing. Bill shut the door and walked back to her.
"What does it mean?" she asked breathlessly.
"Winter. The northern winter. I've seen it break too many times. Perhaps we can drown out the sound of it—with music."
He walked toward the battered instrument. Her heart was cold within her, and she nodded eagerly. "Yes—a little ragtime. It will be frightfully loud in the cabin, but it's better than the sound of the storm."
She didn't dream that this wilderness man would choose any other kind of music than ragtime. She was but new to the North, otherwise she would have made no such mistake. Superficiality was no part of these northern men. They knew life in the raw, the travail of existence, the pinch of cold and the fury of the storm; and the music that they felt in their hearts was never the light-hearted dance music of the South. Music is the articulation of the soul, and the souls of these men were darkened and sad. It could not be otherwise, sons of the wilderness as they were.
The pack song, on the hilltop in the winter moon, was never a melody of laughter. Rather it was the song of life itself, life in the raw, and the sadness and pain and the hopeless war of existence find their echo in the wailing notes. None of the wilderness voices were joyous. When Bill had chosen his records he took those that answered his own mood and expressed his own being.
Not all of them were sad music, in the strictest sense. But they were all intense, poignant and tremulous with the deepest longings of the human soul.
"I haven't any ragtime," the man explained humbly. "I could only bring up a few records, and so I took just the ones I liked best. They're simple things—I'm sorry I haven't any more."
She looked at this man with growing wonder. Of course he would like the simple things. No man of her acquaintance had ever possessed truer standards: no sophistication or cultural growth such as she herself had know could have given him a truer gentility. What was this thing that men could learn in the woods and in the North that gave them such poise, such standards, and brought out such qualities of manhood? Yet she knew that the forests did not treat all men alike. Those of intrinsic virtue were made better, their strength was supplemented by the strength of the wilderness itself, but the weaklings perished quickly. This was not a land for soft men, for the weak and the cowardly and the vicious. The wild soon found them out, harried them by storms and broke their hearts and their spirits, and kept from them its gracious secrets. Perhaps in this latter thing lay the explanation. It seemed to her that Bill was always straining, listening for the faintest, whispered voices of the forest about him. He was always watching, always studying—his soul and his heart open—and Nature poured forth upon him her incalculable rewards.
He put on a record, closed the doors of the instrument tight to muffle the sound, and set the needle. She recognized the melody at once. It was Drdla's "Souvenir"—and the first notes seemed to sweep her into infinity.
It was a beautiful, haunting thing, sweet as love, warm as a maiden's heart, tender as motherhood; and all at once Virginia was aware of a heart-stirring and incredible contrast. The melody did not drown out the sound of the storm. It rose above it, infinitely sweet and entreating, and all the time the wild strains of the storm outside made a strange and dreadful background. Yet the two songs mingled with such harmony as only old masters, devotees to music, can sometimes hear in their inmost souls but never express in notes.
She felt the tears start in her eyes. Her cheeks flamed. Her heart raced and thrilled. For all the exquisite beauty of the song, a vague dread and an incomprehensible fear seemed to come upon her. For all the stir and impulse of the melody, a strange but exquisite sadness engulfed her spirit. In that single instant the North drew aside its curtains of mystery and showed her its secret altar. For a breath at least she knew its soul,—its travail, its dreadful beauty, its infinite sadness, its merciless strength.
In her time Virginia had now and then known the fear of Death. Two nights previous, as the waters had engulfed her, she had known it very well. But never before had she known fear of life. That's what it was—fear of life—life that could only cost and could not pay, that could take and could not give, that could pain but could not heal. She knew now the dreadful persecution of the elements, cold and storm and the snow fields stretching ever from range to range. She knew the fear of hunger, of struggle to break the spirit and rend the body, of disaster that could not be turned aside, of cruel and immutable destiny. She knew now why the waterfowl had circled all day so restlessly: they too had known the age-old fear of the northern winter. They had sensed, in secret ways, the swift approach of the storm.
Winter was at hand. It would lock the streams and sweep the land with snow, the sun would grow feeble in the sky, and the spirit of Cold would descend with its age-old terrors. And the creepy fear, the haunting terror known to all northern creatures, man or beast, crept into her like a subtle poison.
It was a moment of enchantment. The music rose high, fell in soaring leaps, trembled in infinite appeal, and slowly died away. Outside the storm increased in fury. The wind sobbed over the cabin roof, the trees complained, the snow beat against the window pane. And still the spell lingered. Her lustrous eyes gazed out through the darkened pane, but her thoughts carried far beyond it.
And it was well for her peace of mind that she did not glance at Bill. The music had moved him too: besides the fear of the North he had been torn by even a deeper emotion, and for the instant it was written all to clearly upon his rugged features. He was watching the girl's face, his eyes yearning and wistful as no human being had ever seen them.
The soaring notes, with the dreadful accompaniment of the storm, had brought home a truth to him that for days on the trail he had tried to deny. "I love you, Virginia," cried the inaudible voice of his soul. "Oh, Virginia—I love you, I love you."