With scarcely a word he lifted her to the cot, covered her with a blanket, and in spite of her protests, went speedily about the work of cooking her supper. It was a strange thing what pleasure it gave him to see the warm glow of the life stream flow back into her blanched cheeks, and her deep, blue eyes fill again with light. Heretofore this twilight hour, at the end of a bitter day, had been the worst hour of all; but to-night it was the best. He hadn’t dreamed that so much pleasure could be gained simply by serving others. In addition to some of the simple staples that he found among the cabin’s supplies, he served her, as a great surprise, the plump, white breast of a ptarmigan that he had found in one of his ermine traps; and it was somehow a deep delight to see her little, white teeth stripping the flesh from the bone. He warmed her up with hot coffee; then sat beside her while the night deepened at the window.
They had a quiet hour of talk before he drew the blankets about her shoulders and left her to drift away in sleep. He was unexplainably exultant; light-hearted for all this drear waste that surrounded him. This little hut of logs was home, to-night. The cold could not come in; the wind would clamor at the roof in vain.
He did her work for her to-night. He skinned the smaller animals she had brought in, then fleshed and stretched all the pelts she had taken. After preparing his own skins, he made a hard bed for himself on the floor of the hut.
It was with real regret that they took different ways in the dawn. Ned’s last office was to prepare kindling for her use on her next visit to the cabin four days hence—hardly realizing that he was learning a little trick of the woodsman’s trade that would stand him in good stead in many a dreadful twilight to come. Only the veriest tenderfoot plans on cutting his kindling when he finishes his day’s toil. The tried woodsman, traveling wilderness trails, does such work in the morning, before fatigue lays hold of him. The thing goes farther: even when he does not expect to pass that way again he is careful to leave the kindling pile for the next comer. Like all the traditions of the North, it is founded on necessity: the few seconds thus saved in striking the flame have more than once, at the end of a bitter day, saved the flame of a sturdy life. This is the hour when seconds count. The hands are sometimes too cold to hold the knife: the tired spirit despairs at this labor of cutting fuel. It is very easy, then, to lie still and rest and let the cold take its toll.
The trails of these two trappers often crossed, in the weeks to come. They kept close track of each other’s schedules, and they soon worked out a system whereby they could meet at the Forks cabin at almost every circuit. They arranged it wholly without embarrassment, each of them appreciating the other’s need for companionship. By running a few traps toward the interior from the forks, Bess made an excuse to take five days to her route; and for once Doomsdorf seemed to fail to see her real motive. Perhaps he thought she was merely trying to increase her catch, thus hoping to avoid the penalties he had threatened.
Ned found to his amazement that they had many common interests. They were drawn together not only by their toil, and by their mutual fear of Doomsdorf’s lash; but they also shared a deep and growing interest in the wilderness about them. The wild life was an absorbing study in itself. They taught each other little tricks of the trapper’s trade, narrated the minor adventures of their daily toil; they were of mutual service in a hundred different ways. No longer did Ned go about his work in the flimsy clothes of the city. Out of the pelts he had dried she helped to make him garments and moccasins as warm and serviceable as her own, supplied through an unexpected burst of generosity on Doomsdorf’s part soon after their arrival on the island. They brought their hardest problems to the Forks cabin and solved them together.
As the winter advanced upon them, they found an increasing need of mutual help. The very problem of living began to demand their best coöperation. The winter was more rigorous than they had ever dreamed in their most despairing moments, so that coöperation was no longer a matter of pleasure, but the stark issue of life itself. The spirit, alone and friendless, yielded quickly in such times as these.
It got to be a mystery with them after while, why they hadn’t given up long since, instead of playing this dreadful, nightmare game to its ultimate end of horror and death. Why were they such fools as to keep up the hopeless fight, day after day through the intense cold, bending their backs to the killing labor, when at any moment they might find rest and peace? They did not have to look far. Freedom was just at their feet. Just to fall, to lie still; and the frost would creep swiftly enough into their veins. Sleep would come soon, the delusion of warmth, and then Doomsdorf’s lash could never threaten them again. But they found no answer to the question. It was as if a power beyond themselves was holding them up. It was as if there was a debt to pay before they could find rest.
Day after day the snow sifted down, ever laying a deeper covering over the island, bending down the limbs of the strong trees, obscuring all things under this cold infinity of white. The traps had to be laboriously dug out and reset, again and again. These were the days when the old “sourdough” on the mainland remained within his cabin, merely venturing to the door after fuel; but Ned and Bess knew no such mercy. Their fate was to struggle on through those ever-deepening drifts until they died. Driven by a cruel master they dared not rest even a day. Walking was no longer possible without snowshoes; and even these sank deep in the soft drifts, the webs filling with snow, so that to walk a mile was the most bitter, heart-breaking labor. Yet their fate was to plow on, one day upon another,—strange, dim figures in the gray, whirling flakes—the full, bitter distances between their cabins. To try to lay out meant death, certain and very soon. Moreover they could not even move with their old leisure. The days were constantly shorter, just a ray of light between great curtains of darkness; and only by mushing at the fastest possible walking pace were they able to make it through.
When the skies cleared, an undreamed degree of cold took possession of the land. Seemingly every trickle of moving water was already frozen hard, the sea sheltered by the island chain was an infinity of ice, snow-swept as was the rest of the weary landscape, but now the breath froze on the beard, and the eyelids one upon another. The fingers froze in the instant that the fur gloves were removed, and the hottest fires could hardly warm the cabins. And on these clear, bitter nights the Northern Lights were an ineffable glory in the sky.