With the fluttering bird in her arms, she ascended the trail to the Lookout. At the top the home-made flag flung its tatters out in the sunshine. Ellen noted that it blew toward Katleean. The wind, then, was favorable. The trader should have her message by morning. And in two more days—she shook her head, not permitting herself to think further.
A few minutes she stood looking seaward. Then she held the bird out in both hands and with all her strength tossed it into the air.
Fluttering wildly, it recovered its balance, circled narrowly, rose a few feet and—settled down on the tundra before her. It took a few limping steps. Ellen was puzzled at its behavior. Perhaps she had tied the message too tightly about its leg. She would readjust it and urge the bird to flight again.
With outstretched hands she advanced toward it and tried to imprison it between her hands, but the pigeon flapped along ahead of her just out of reach. After some minutes' running back and forth over the short grass she caught it, and with her back to the flagpole, sat down on a piece of firewood to loosen the string about the creature's leg. So intent was she on her work that she did not at once hear the sound of approaching footsteps. When she did turn her head quickly it was to look up into the anger-lighted eyes of her husband.
He reached roughly across her shoulder and with one hand grasped the pigeon by the legs. With the other he thrust toward her two pieces of thin writing paper.
"Now, perhaps, you will explain these!" he said in a voice that fluctuated strangely from his intense effort to control himself.
Dazed by the unexpected turn of affairs Ellen rose and mechanically took the sheets. They were two half completed notes to the White Chief—notes she had discarded. She must have overlooked them when she burned the others. What had she said in her anxiety to bring Kilbuck immediately to Kon Klayu? What had she said to arouse Shane's sleeping devil of jealousy which she had known often during the first years of their married life? "Paul Kilbuck,"—the words stood out black in her large handwriting. As she read the words she slipped the other paper over them. "I want you now——"
"So you want him now, do you?" Mocking fury sounded in Shane's voice. "You want him now, this fine, squaw-man lover of yours who left you to starve! God, what a blind fool I've been—but I can see it all now. I remember his whisperings to you that day we left Katleean—" He snatched the papers from her hand and thrust them into his pocket with a bitter laugh. "I'll deliver your loving message myself just before I choke—him——"
"Stop, Shane!" Suddenly Ellen was herself again. She knew nothing that had happened between her and the White Chief was one tenth as dishonorable as the things Shane's jealous imagination pictured. She stepped over to him and laid a hand on his trembling arm. "I can explain these half written notes," she said quietly. "I can explain everything, Shane."
She looked up into his tense, passionate face. He must have seen something in her blue eyes that claimed him, for he asked more reasonably: