I looked for my crew. The men were curled under trees, but Singing Arrow had used more craft. She had hidden herself under her light canoe,—which she had first secured with pegs that it might not blow away,—and she lay as compact and comfortable as a tree-housed grub. I lifted the corner of the canoe and peered at her, whereat she giggled happily, serene in the thought that I was wet while she was dry. She was as restful to the brain as a frolicking puppy, and I shook my head at her to hear her giggle again. I was about to wonder whether she had ever known awe of anything, but just then the thunder, which had been merely growling, barked out like a howitzer above us, and she covered her head and screamed like any of her sex.
The thunder sent me back to the woman. I crept, wet as I was, into her pine-needled hollow, and started to ask if she were afraid. But the question died at sight of her. She was propped on her elbows, and had parted the low boughs in front of her that she might look out at the storm. She turned at sound of me, and the blood was in her cheeks as I felt it in mine.
"Come," she cried with her motion.
I went and lay close beside her, peering, as she did, through the trees. The world was all wind and red light and churning water. I could feel her quick breathing.
"I can hear the spirit of the wilderness crying," she said to me. The lightning played over her face and eyes, and they shone like flame.
I laid a hand on her wet blankets. "Has the rain soaked through?"
But she did not listen. The exultation in her look I have seen sometimes in the face of a young priest; I have also seen it in a savage dancer. It is all one. It is the leaping response of the soul to the call of a great freedom. Storm was summoning storm. I found the woman's hand, and lay with it in mine.
She remembered me again after a time. "Does it call to you?" she cried.
I could feel the blood racing in her palm. "As it does to you," I answered, and I lay still, and let the storm riot in me, and around me, with her hand held close.
We could not speak for some time. The thunder was constant, and the play of the lightning was like the dazzle of a fencer's sword. Mingled with the thunder came the slap of frothing water and the whine of bending trees. The wind was ice to the cheeks.