The fact could not be denied. Ned turned from her, nestling to the fire for warmth.
The happiness he had expected in this long-awaited night had failed to materialize. He ate his great meal, sat awhile in sporadic conversation with the girl in the snug cabin; then went wearily to his blankets. He hardly knew what was missing. Her beauty was no less; it was enhanced, if anything, by the flush of the wind on her cheeks. Yet she didn’t understand what he had been doing, what he had been through. He held her interest but slightly as he told of his adventures on the trail. When in turn she talked to him, it was of her own wrongs; and the old quick, eager sympathy somehow failed to reach his heart. But it was all he could expect on this terrible island. He must thank what gods there were for the one kiss she had given him—and be content. All happiness was clouded here.
Often, in the little hour after supper about the stove, he wakened from his revery to find that he had been thinking about Bess. She had come in from her line the previous day and had gone out again; and he had not dreamed that her absence could leave such a gap in their little circle. He had hardly regarded her at all, yet he found himself missing her. She was always so high-spirited, encouraging him with her own high heart. Of course the very fact that they were just three, exiled among foes, would make her absence keenly felt. The mere bond of common humanity would do that. Yet he found himself wishing that he had shown greater appreciation of her kindness, her courage, her sweet solicitude for him. On her lonely trap line out in the wastes it was as if she had gone forever. He found himself resenting the fact that Lenore had but cold assent to his praise of her, wholly unappreciative of the fact that her own ease was due largely to Bess’s offer to do additional work.
But his blankets gave him slumber, and he rose in the early hours, breakfasted, and started out on his lonely trap line. He was not a little excited as to the results of this morning’s tramp. Every skin he took was his, to protect his own body from the bitter, impending cold.
The first few traps had not been sprung. Out-witting the wild creatures was seemingly not the easy thing he had anticipated. The bait had been stolen from a marten trap at the edge of the barrens, but the jaws had failed to go home, and a subsequent light snowfall had concealed the tracks by which he might have identified the thief. Was this the answer to his high hopes? But he had cause to halt when he neared the trap on the beaver dam.
For a moment he couldn’t locate the trap. Then he saw that the wire, fastened securely to the bank, had become mysteriously taut. Not daring to hope he began to tug it in.
At the end of the wire he found his trap, and in the trap was a large beaver, drowned and in prime condition.
The moment was really a significant one for Ned. The little traps of steel, placed here and there through the wilderness, had seemed a doubtful project at best; but now they had shown results. The incident gave him added confidence in himself and his ability to battle successfully these perilous wilds. The rich, warm skin would help to clothe him, and he would easily catch others to complete his wardrobe.
The beaver was of course not frozen; and the skin stripped off easily under the little, sawing strokes of his skinning knife. He was rather surprised at its size. It came off nearly round, and it would stretch fully thirty-two inches in diameter. Washing it carefully, he put it over his back and started on.
Other traps yielded pelts in his long day’s march. The trap on the beaver landing contained a muskrat; he found several more of the same furred rodents in his traps along the creek; and small skins though they were, he had a place for every one. Once an otter, caught securely by the hind leg, showed fight and had to be dispatched by a blow on the head with a club; and once he was startled when a mink, scarcely larger than his hand, leaped from the snowy weeds, trap and all, straight for his ankle.