Bill was considerably heartened. At least he didn't have to deal with the savage love that sometimes the Indian women bore the whites. Sindy was evidently wholly indifferent to Harold's fate. The match obviously had not been a great success.
For an instant Harold lay still, crumpled on the floor; then his bleeding hands fumbled at his belt. Once more Bill sprang and snatched him to his feet. The holster, however, was empty.
"No more of that," Bill cautioned. The man's eyes smoldered with resentment, but for the moment he was cowed. "Before you start anything more, hear what I've got to offer you." His voice lowered, and the words came rather painfully. "It's your one chance, Lounsbury—to come back. Virginia Tremont has come into the North, looking for you. She's at my camp. She wants to take you back with her."
Lounsbury's breath caught with a strange, sobbing sound. "Virginia—up here?" he cried. "Does she know about—this——" He indicated the cabin interior, and all it meant, with one sweep of his arm.
"Of course not. How could she? Whether you tell her or not is a matter for you and she to decide. She's come to find you—and bring you back."
"My God! To the States?"
"Of course."
For the instant the black wrath had left his face, and his thought swung backward to his own youth,—to the days he had known Virginia in a far-off city. He was more than a little awed at this manifestation of her love. He supposed that she had forgotten him long since and had never dreamed that she would search for him here.
Once more the expression of his face changed, and Bill couldn't have explained the wave of revulsion that surged through him. He only knew a blind desire to tear with his strong fingers those leering lips before him. Harold was lost in insidious speculations. He remembered the girl's beauty, the grace and litheness of her form, the holy miracle of her kisses. Opposite him sat his squaw,—swarthy, unclean, shapeless, comely as squaws go but as far from Virginia as night was from day. Perhaps it wasn't too late yet——
But at that instant he heard the East Wind on the roof, and he recalled that the old problem of existence faced him still. He had solved it up here. His cabin was warm, he was full-fed; the squaw grubbed his living for him out of the frozen forests. He did not want to be forced to face the competition of civilized existence again. He was dirty, care-free; his furs supplied food and clothes for him and certain rags for her, and filled his cupboard with strong drink. He remembered that the girl had had no money, and that he had come first to the North to find gold. If he had succeeded, if his poke were heavy with the yellow metal, he could go back to his city and take up his old life anew, but he couldn't begin at the bottom. With wealth at his command he might even find a more desirable woman than Virginia: perhaps the years had changed her even as himself. There was no need of dreaming further about the matter. Only one course, considering the circumstances, lay before him.